


The God of Destruction and I

by Iwvs



Series: The God of Destruction and I [1]
Category: Black Clover - Tabata Yuki (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Black Bulls Squad (Black Clover), Black Bulls Squad as Family (Black Clover), F/M, Gen, POV First Person, horny garbage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:08:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 47,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21521944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iwvs/pseuds/Iwvs
Summary: I was lost, an orphan on a never-ending vengeance spree, before I met the man they call "The God of Destruction".
Relationships: Yami Sukehiro/Original Character(s)
Series: The God of Destruction and I [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1562317
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41





	1. The Bone Devil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! This is a cross-post from FF.net. It's set between the star festival and royal knights arcs, in a slight AU that puts a little more time between the two. I've not read the manga at all, so any references to stuff that happens after the elf arc (where the anime is currently) are purely accidental.

The village I was from didn't see magic knights very often. In fact, until I was thirteen I wasn't even sure they existed.

Bandits are a constant problem. Mostly they are men with a little more power than the rest. They let it go to their heads, think that they can do anything they want.

But I was born to a greater power.

 _Bone shell_. I spoke the incantation and my grimoire riffled its pages, glowing white. The armour grew from my shoulders first, plates branching out and forming over my forearms, my stomach and the rest of my body. Finally it covered my face, pushing my hair back in a plume and leaving two narrow slits for my eyes. Horns curled from either side of my head. If anyone from my village could see me, they would say I was a monster. They might be right.

 _Bone sword_. I extended my right arm, and the blade shot from my palm. Mana loaded on the cutting edge, unlike my plates, which were reinforced evenly.

I stood, controlling my breath. The final incantation was the trickiest.

 _Throw the bones_. I tossed them to the ground, knucklebones carved with runes, and knelt to read them. An arrow, for the direction of the enemy with the strongest mana, and five black stars. Why stars? I frowned, scooping up the dice and absorbing them back into my armour. My magic was rarely so vague- usually a throw like this would give the runes for enemy, or danger.

Regardless, the bandits needed dealing with. No-one in the village had been as strong as me, not even near. I'd only had my grimoire a few years, but in that time I'd only met a handful of people whose strength was comparable to mine.

I could have chosen to be like the bandits. To take what I wanted, be a queen. Instead, I had chosen this path. To push through overgrown forest paths. To track down, and avenge.

They were close enough now that I could sense their mana. A dozen minor offensive type casters, and a couple bigger. One huge one, near the center of the camp. No. Two? I felt a second powerful mage skirt the edge of my range, in then out again. The opposite edge of the camp.

I thought of the village they had raided. Not mine, but one like mine had been, on the eastern edge of the forest. The smell of ash in the air from the burnt buildings. Women crying over dead husbands and children. Who would deliver vengeance, if not me? If not the Bone Devil?

I stepped out from the treeline and into the bandit camp.

I'd long ago made peace with the necessity of killing. These men were murderers, rapists and thieves. I was just one girl. Where would I put them, if I took them down? They would just come back for me.

I took the first bandit out without a word. Just the bone sword, across the throat, severing arteries and crushing his windpipe. His blood smelled like iron as it splattered over me. The Bone Devil doesn't speak- I'd decided this long ago. No-one is afraid of a girl's voice. So the Bone Devil moves silently, and he kills.

Three of the minor talents had spotted me and were charging their attack spells, grimoires flipping open. I fired a spike of bone into the ground, launching myself up and towards them as they shot. The first attack I took on the shoulder, bracing my armour against it. The second I dodged midair, firing a spike to my left to strafe to my right. The third I cut with my blade as I fell, and I angled the point down, impaling its startled user with my landing. I ripped it out again to kill the bandit to my left, then shot a spike from my right hand for the third.

The camp was in uproar by this point. Men screamed, and scrambled for their things, and there were shouts of Bone Devil, Bone Devil.

And the powerful caster at the center of the camp moved. He was fast. I caught a flash of him before his first attack hit- lightning magic. I turned, bracing my shoulders and catching the lightning ball on my chest plate. It hit hard, throwing me backwards, and the caster followed.

He was a tall man with a shock of green hair, bandit paint over his leering face, and a gaudy necklace at his throat.

I shot a bone spike at him, but he twisted easily out of the way, lightning crackling round his cloak. He was too fast for my ranged attacks, then. I spread my arms, shooting a couple of encroaching bandits as I landed. The lightning user landed too, more easily than me, and grinned at me, ball of lightning crackling in his hand.

"So you're the monster we've been hearing so much about," he said. "You don't look like a monster to me. You look like a jumped up peasant in a costume, who needs teaching a lesson."

Right. Not like I'd just dispatched a half dozen of his men. I didn't reply as he shot another ball of lightning at me. I tried to roll, but he was too fast, and caught my shoulder, the attack sizzling as it hit the armour. I advanced on him, trying to close the distance between us, but he zipped back, out of reach of my sword. He hit me with another thunderball, and I heard a crack as my armour started to chip. Around me, the other bandits seemed emboldened by his actions, and readied their own attacks.

I swore under my breath, catapulting myself back with a shot to the ground. The lightning bandit was hot on my tail, but the move had put me out of range of the weaker casters. I centered myself, slowing my breathing. My opponent was faster than me, but that didn't mean he was unbeatable. He lacked a direct way to manipulate the air, so like me, he was reduced to using projectiles to change his speed and direction. He was faster than me currently, but he was a full grown man. If I shed my armour, I would be lighter than him. I ripped the damaged plate from my shoulder and shot it at his feet. As predicted, he dodged midair, a barrage of lightning righting him.

"What is this?" he asked. "Some sort of striptease?"

He shot at my stomach and I took it, the plate cracking with the impact. The momentum of it would keep me aloft whilst conserving my own mana. I threw the second plate after the first, and my opponent shot at the opening it left. I twisted, taking it on an arm bracer, and throwing that at him too.

"You're a girl," he crowed, after this exchange had repeated a few times. "Well, why didn't you say anything? Give up now, and I'll let you be my girlfriend."

I didn't bother to reply. He was breathing hard, and I could feel his mana ebbing. Good. Mine wasn't great, but I was expending less magic than him. I sent my mana to my left arm bracer, reinforcing it as I took another hit. Without my bone shell weighing me down, each hit sent me back faster. Now I just needed to finish the job.

I twisted midair, a lightning ball sizzling within an inch of my exposed stomach. Arm behind me, I launched myself towards my enemy, sword forwards. He swung away, but we were losing altitude, at treetop height now. My territory. I caught myself easily on a branch as he scrambled to do the same. Using the sway of the treetop I plunged down after him, my blade cutting the air. He dodged again, his lightning saving him, but there was anger in his eyes now.

Men like him, men who believe they are better than everyone else, that they are above everyone else, don't like to find out they are wrong. It makes them dangerous.

"Bitch!" he screamed. There was lightning in his mouth, lightning over his body. I cut at him, and he caught my blade in his crackling hand, pulling me forward. The lightning surged up my arm, paralysing my muscles. His other fist came for my face, punching my helm. It made a deafening sound as it split, but I didn't care. I had been in worse places than this, with worse men than him. His lightning hurt me, set every nerve on fire, but I rode it. I grabbed his forearm. I wasn't strong enough to stop him punching me again, but I didn't need to. All I needed to do was use my magic.

The small bones of his wrist were tiny javelins, flying backwards. The twin bones of his forearm were curved knives, splaying outwards. His humerus I crumpled, and his ribcage I caved in, bursting his heart.

Shaking, I let him go, wrenching my sword from his remaining hand. No longer supported by me, he fell, blood flowing from his mouth. I didn't realize I had been screaming until I stopped. I staggered backwards, rubbing feeling back into my sword arm.

"Huh. You are not what I expected," came the voice from behind me.

The other strong mana source, I realized with a chill. I spun towards him, levelling my blade. I hadn't counted on the first one being so strong, and this guy had used barely any mana. A little, to keep up with the fight, but he hadn't even broken a sweat and I was close to my limit.

He was a huge man, with dark hair, a curved sword in one hand and a black cape covering one shoulder. "Good fight," he said. "You're pretty strong."

I blinked, controlling my breath, and drawing what scraps remained of my mana inwards. A delay was good. A delay bought me time to recover. "Praising me won't save you," I said, though my voice sounded hoarse. How long had it been since I had talked to another person? "I'll kill you like I killed the rest of the bandits."

He squinted at me. "So you can talk," he said. "I thought maybe you were a mute."

I gestured at him with my sword. "Silence, bandit."

"I'm not a bandit," he said, simply. "I'm a magic knight."

Lies. Everything he said was a lie. There were no magic knights in these woods- there never had been. The few that came to the villages were just bandits in fancy capes, there to take whatever they wanted. But every second the man lied was a second I could recover mana. "If you're a magic knight, why are you here?" I asked, sending mana to the ribs the lightning man had cracked in our fight. "I sensed you back in the camp."

The man raised an eyebrow. "You're healing yourself," he said. It wasn't a question.

Fuck. If he knew that, I had no choice but to attack. I rushed forward, lunging at him, my vision going black at the edges. The man sidestepped neatly, then ducked my backswing, almost like he predicted it before it happened.

"Stop that. What are you, crazy?" he grumbled, dodging another blow. "I told you, I'm not a bandit."

He hit me in the stomach with the hilt of his sword, and I doubled over, blood coppery in my mouth. Darkness threatened the periphery of my vision, but I fought it back, sending mana to my failing body.

"You're gonna hurt yourself if you carry on like that," he said.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "I'm not stopping." I growled.

He sighed, holding out one hand. "Dark magic. Dark binding."

I tried to avoid the attack, but my body betrayed me, my injured legs moving too slowly. I cried out as his darkness seized me. No. Not yet. The shadows pinned my arms, forcing them to my sides, and I toppled to the ground, face first.

The man gave a sigh and squatted down beside me, picking my grimoire up out of the dirt. He flipped through it, pausing at a few spells and nodding approvingly. "This is pretty good," he said. "You've got a limited power, but you're working hard to cover your weak points. Lotta mobility."

I scowled at him. Touching someone else's grimoire was a violation. He probably expected me to demand it back. If I didn't, he might threaten to damage it somehow. But to my surprise, he closed it gently, brushing a dead leaf from the cover, and put it in the holder at his belt next to his own.

He put his hand on my head. "You shouldn't have charged me, though," he said. "That was pretty dumb."

I prickled at the comment. "Then what should I have done?"

He shrugged. "You're badly injured. You knew how powerful I was. In your position, I might retreat."

I closed my eyes. Saw my village in flames. Saw myself, newly acquired grimoire clutched to my chest, running away into the forest. "I can't protect people by running away," I said.

He looked down at me with something like surprise. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Kost," I said.

"Yami," he said, pointing a thumb at his own chest. His tone was gentle. "How long have you been out here? Did anyone train you?"

How long had it been, since my village burned? "Screw you," I spat. "You're trying to get my sympathy, aren't you? I know you're just a murdering rapist like the rest of them, so you can just quit trying now."

Yami rolled his eyes. "I never raped anyone. Murdered? Yeah, sure. I've killed people. You shouldn't call people names when you don't know anything about them. It's rude." He grabbed my hair, lifting my head. "Now, I'm gonna give you a choice. You're pretty badly wounded, and you've lost a lot of blood. Do you want me to take you out of here, to somewhere where you can recover, or do you want me to leave you on the forest floor to die?"

I bared my teeth at him, and ground out my answer. "I choose death."

* * *

When I woke up, I was being carried. It took a moment to register the warmth against my face as Yami's chest, and the grip around my knees and back as his arms.

"I told you, I chose death," I mumbled. "Put me down."

"Sorry, kid," Yami rumbled. He didn't sound sorry. "I wasn't just going to leave you there."

"You said I had a choice."

"So did I. I chose to ignore your choice."

"Then what was the point in me making a choice?"

"I dunno. Guess I hoped you'd make the choice I wanted you to make, and then you couldn't complain."

We weren't in the bandit camp. We were travelling through the woods instead, in the opposite direction. Maybe he hadn't been lying about being a magic knight after all.

We reached a clearing and he set me down in the leaves, still wrapped in dark magic. I watched as he built a fire.

"Y'know, this would be much easier if I didn't have to keep you tied up," said Yami. "If I unbind you, would you give your word not to attack me, or invert my bones or whatever it is you do?"

I locked eyes with him, silently, and shook my head.

"If you actually wanted to attack me, you could lie about it," he said, scratching his chin.

"But then I'd be breaking my word," I said.

Yami looked at me steadily. "Close enough," he said, and I felt his binding on me loosen.

I coughed, feeling my mana flood back to my injured body. Without my armour, I was naked, and I saw a flash of embarrassment on Yami's cheeks before he threw his travelling cloak over me and looked away.

"What are you, some kind of exhibitionist?" He massaged his forehead.

"What did you expect? You put binding magic on me. I couldn't keep up my armour."

"And you're just naked under that?"

It was my turn to shrug. "More efficient that way. Better mobility." Wrapping the cloak around me, I focused inward, renewing the reinforcement magic that would keep my body together. I had some bad burns from the fight, but the cold from the dark magic had taken a lot of the heat out of them, and they weren't as deep as I had feared.

"Are you decent yet?" Yami asked boredly, still looking away.

"Why? You want to stare at me some more?"

He snorted as he turned to face me again. "I've seen better." He paused, looking at me for a second before turning to sit in front of the fire.

I flushed, almost despite myself. What did I care what some strange man thought?

"Not gonna attack me, huh," said Yami, one eyebrow raised. I realised, belatedly, that his back had been turned to me, and I hadn't taken the chance to attack him.

"Not yet." I shook my head. "It's like you said- I'm much too weak right now."

"Good plan." The big man looked over at me, a smirk forming on his lips. "Maybe I can convince you I'm not a bad guy in the meantime."

"I'll listen." I hugged his cloak around me. The material was rough, but it was warm from his body. "Not that I have much of a choice. What are you doing here, if you're not a bandit?"

Yami pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and began to smoke. "I collect beasts," he said. "It's my hobby."

I folded my arms under the cloak. "There are no beasts in Argula forest."

"I know that now," said Yami. "But the locals had stories about one. Seven feet tall, made of interlocking plates of bone, big horns. The victims it doesn't eat, it mutilates and leaves in the forest as a warning. Sound familiar?"

I was quiet as I digested the information. "I was protecting them," I said, looking down.

"I was looking for the bone devil," he said. "I just didn't expect that you would be a mage."

I slept on the ground by the fire, curled in Yami's cloak. He must have noticed me shivering, because at some point in the night, he pulled me to him, arms around me and the cloak. He didn't take advantage, which I guess was noble of him, but I already had a sort of crush on him. I liked the way he smelled, and the warmth of his big body. Held by him, I felt safer than I had in years in the forest, and my usual fretful sleep slipped into something deeper.


	2. Beasts in a Cage

"Oi, Kost, wake up."

I opened my eyes blearily, and it took me a moment to register where I was. Lying on the cold ground, with a cloak around me. Had I dreamed him holding me? I sat up, shivering. My mana was higher than it had been, but my injuries were still severe. The bones I could fix once I had my grimoire back, but the rest of me would take time. Yami was hunched over a rekindled campfire, cooking something that smelled both delicious and familiar.

"You should eat something." Yami passed me something wrapped in foil. "You're all skin and bones. What do you even eat out here, anyway?"

"Squirrels, mostly. Boar sometimes." I took the parcel gingerly, my eyes widening as I realized what was inside. A pie. An actual pie. With oily, golden pastry. I felt my throat ache with emotion, and swallowed the feeling down as the steam rose to my face. "Sometimes there's fruit."

"Figures." Yami smirked to himself. "Once we've got you home, we'll feed you up, don't worry."

Home? I felt my eyes widen. "You're taking me home with you?"

"It's more like a base, really. But yeah." He scratched his chin. "You don't have a problem with that, do you?"

I frowned down at my pie, and shook my head.

* * *

It was my first time flying on a broom. I didn't lack experience in flying, per se, since I launched myself up beyond the treetops with my magic on a semi-regular basis. But balancing on a stick as it followed a regular path through the air was a different skill, one I lacked. I clung on for dear life as Yami flew us, my eyes squeezed shut. Yami seemed unconcerned, balancing on the stick in a casual half squat.

"Oh, for fuck's sake-" Yami pried me from the stick. "You're making it hard to steer." He pulled me up onto his knee, one arm around my waist. "Your parents never taught you to fly a broom?"

"They died," I said. "Bandits."

"Shit," said Yami. I couldn't see his face, but his grip on me was a little bit tighter. The kingdom sped past below us like a storybook picture, the fields and woods of the forsaken region fading into townships and noble estates.

"Nearly there," said Yami as we cleared another forest, the sun low in the sky. A big house loomed ahead, with a ramshackle roof and about forty windows. He lowered us down over the gardens. "I'll introduce you to my squad- Vanessa and Charmy can take care of you."

I wanted him to take care of me, not that I could say it. My hands lingered on his arm as he helped me down, my reinforcement magic taking my weight as I stood.

"Asta!" Yami called over to a young man who was sweeping leaves from the garden as he dismounted. "Where's Vanessa?"

"Boss!" The young man ran up, eyes shining. He had short silver hair, and was ridiculously muscled, only slightly less than Yami himself. "She's, uh, having a nap in the lounge. Who's that?" His eyes went to me.

"I guess I should introduce you two," said Yami with a shrug. "Asta, this is Kost, the Bone Devil of Argula Forest. She's a guest for now. Kost, this is Asta, Clover Kingdom's number two rookie magic knight."

Asta looked as if he were about to explode with pride. "Pleased to meet you, miss Bone Devil!" he said, extending a hand. "I have a sword that can cut through magic!"

I hugged Yami's cloak around myself, feeling seriously underdressed. "Um, that's nice. Hi," I managed. I frowned at Yami. "You never said you were a captain."

"Would you have believed me if I had?" Yami sighed, putting an arm around my shoulders. "Go sweep the yard," he said, waving Asta away, and led me inside.

"Nessa!" Yami called over as he burst through the front door, dragging me in tow. Inside the house, it was dark and it stank of stale alcohol, bottles strewn over the floor.

A woman, dressed in what could generously be described as a bathing suit, raised herself from the couch, a bottle in hand. "Captain Yami!" she called. "Drink with me."

I looked at Yami doubtfully, and his shoulders dropped a little. "She's actually very capable when she's sober," he said, too low for her to hear.

"What's this, captain? You brought a girl home with you?" Vanessa swayed towards us, directing an expression of hurt at Yami. "You told me you were investigating a beast."

Yami put his hands on my shoulders, steering me in front of him. "This is Kost. She was in the forest. I need you to look after her for a bit."

"Uh, hi." I stuck out a hand.

"Oh! She's precious." Vanessa grabbed me, and I found myself with a face full of boob. "Such tiny ears, such-" Vanessa pulled a face as she pulled a leaf from my hair. "-crunchy hair."

Yami's face was impassive. "She was like that when I found her."

"Yami!" Vanessa lifted the hem of my cloak before I could stop her, her expression scandalised. "She's naked and covered in blood!"

"Like I said." Yami shrugged.

I coughed, swaying on my feet a little. "Not all of it's mine."

"Come on, let's get you cleaned up." Vanessa linked her arm with mine, and I saw her eyes go to Yami's belt, where my grimoire still nestled alongside his, the off-white vertebrae pattern on the spine still visible. "The cap's got better things to do than help girls bathe."

"Yeah," said Yami, his voice utterly flat. "Thanks, Vanessa."

* * *

Running water, running warm water, was something I'd not had in a very long time. At first I just sat on the stool under the tap, letting it run over me. The water that came off me was nearly black. Vanessa sat next to me, staring at my body. Her cheeks were a little pink, but that could have been the alcohol or the temperature of the room.

"You're hurt." She pulled my arm away from me, her eyes full of concern. "And you're so thin." Her fingers brushed my ribs.

I shivered, looking down. I could see more of my ribs than I remembered, and I was covered in bruises, most of them the fresh sort of purple colour. I couldn't even feel most of them.

Vanessa knelt down at my feet, and I flushed, unsure where to look. "What happened to you?" she asked, her eyes wide. I got the sense that her previous friendliness had been sort of a front, but this was more genuine.

I blinked water out of my eyes. Where did I start? "There was a group of men in the forest, raiding the villages on the outskirts," I said. "I dealt with them." Simple, I decided, was probably best. No need to dig up ancient history.

"That explains why Yami picked you up." Vanessa pursed her lips, turning my arm over. "Are those burn marks?"

I tried to pull my arm away, but Vanessa hung onto it, her grip surprisingly strong. "It doesn't matter. I heal pretty quickly anyway."

She looked me in the eye. "If it's a burn, I've got a salve for that."

I let my arm go limp. "It was lightning, if that matters."

Vanessa squeezed my hand. "We can try it, okay? It works for the injuries people pick up from sparring with Luck, so it might work for this."

"Who's Luck?" I asked.

"Oh, just one of our squad members," said Vanessa. She picked up a brush and started to scrub my back, swatting my hand away when I grabbed for it. "Small, cute, loves fighting. You'll meet him if you stay for breakfast."

"I can clean myself," I protested, reaching for the brush again.

Vanessa pulled a face. "Sweetheart, you are still caked in dirt. Let me help you."

Though I'd resisted it at first, Yami handing me off to his subordinates went better than I'd expected. Once I was groomed to her satisfaction, Vanessa wrapped me in one of her old nightgowns, and Charmy, a small, dark-haired woman, put bowls of soup in front of me, until I physically stopped her spooning soup into me.

* * *

I felt sodden in more ways than one when I lay down on the bed in the room they had given me, but when I shut my eyes, my brain kept running.

The house was quieter than the forest, and when it made noises, it made the wrong noises, hollow creakings like a falling tree. I grabbed my blanket and headed downstairs.

"Couldn't sleep, huh." To my surprise, Yami was sat on the sofa, an assortment of paperwork spread across his knees and the table in front of him. A half-smoked cigarette hung from his lips, and the ashtray next to him was full.

I shook my head.

Frowning slightly, Yami moved the stack of books from the seat next to him and patted it. Quietly, I walked round to him and sat there, feet curled under me. Peering past Yami's arm, I could see what he was working on- columns of numbers filling a page.

"Squad accounts," he said, in answer to my stare. He turned the page, and I spotted a list of names, Asta, Vanessa and Charmy among them. There was a space at the bottom of the list, and Yami rested his pen there, with a glance back at me.

"You want to recruit me?" I asked, surprised.

"Mm." Yami exhaled smoke. "Was planning on it. But, last time I gave you a choice to come with me, you chose death, so…" He raised the cigarette to his lips again, the tip glowing a deep orange in the relative darkness of the lounge. "I figured I'd give you some time to come round to it."

"Why would you want me in your squad?" I asked. "I can use magic, sure, but I'm no magic knight."

"Tch. You really are an idiot, aren't you?" Yami grinned to himself. "You could be stupid strong, and you're kind of a psycho. That makes you a perfect fit."

I pulled a face. "I'm not a psycho."

"Oh yeah?" Yami tilted his head to one side. "How many bandits have you killed, Kost?"

I frowned, thinking. Their faces flashed before my eyes. One dead in the snow, his blood a red smear. One decapitated in the bluebells that grew from the forest floor in the spring. A gang of four kidnappers, pinned to the oak trees by their own bones. Three who had chased me from my village, killed by a terrified girl who had just come into her grimoire. I shivered. "A couple dozen?"

Yami gave a snort. "You lost count, didn't you."

I let out my breath in a hiss, trying to push the events from my mind. "They just blur together, okay."

Yami laughed, and put a hand on my head. "See? Total psycho." He ruffled my newly washed hair, and I found myself leaning into his hand. Yami's expression shifted slightly, and he curled his fingers, scritching my scalp. I closed my eyes, and Yami snorted with amusement before he continued. "That's a dangerous combo, and I'd rather you were on my team than someone else's. And I don't think you're a bad person."

"How can you tell?"

"Instinct," he said. His hand moved to behind my ear, thumb brushing my earlobe, and I felt a warmth surge in the pit of my stomach, my heart seeming to beat more loudly. "If someone's bad, they give me a bad feeling. It's not a hundred percent, sure, but I can deal with that. I'll take a gamble on you not being bad."

"I give you a good feeling?" I opened one eye.

Yami lifted his hand from my head, smirking to himself. "Perhaps," he said. "Now pipe down. I gotta finish this."

I leaned back on the sofa, watching him pore over the papers, circling a number here and there as he smoked, sometimes correcting them.

Something about him being there was comforting. I stifled a yawn, my eyes beginning to close, and he looked up.

"I thought you couldn't sleep." Yami stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray next to him.

"I couldn't," I said.

"You were nodding off there," he said.

"I guess-" I avoided his gaze. "I don't feel like I'm about to get jumped right now." Like he would stop whatever nameless figure sprouted from the shadows, was what I meant, but a large part of me would rather die than admit that.

Yami pulled a sour face, looking at his knees, then at me. "You're gonna have to figure out how to sleep by yourself eventually," he said.

"Yeah," I bowed my head. "I'll go back to my room."

Yami shook his head. "That's not what I meant, dammit." He stood, offering his arm to me. "C'mon, I'm gonna take you somewhere."

"What about your paperwork?" I draped my blanket over my shoulders as I took his arm, his skin as warm as I remembered.

"It can wait." Yami shrugged. "I was pretty much finished anyway."

Where were we going? I looked up at Yami as he led me through the base- along a corridor and down a flight of stairs. Not his room, surely. The air cooled as we walked down, as if we were in a cellar, and I heard something roar. Up ahead were metal bars in place of a wall, and dark, leonine shapes moved beyond them.

"Like I said earlier, I collect beasts," said Yami.

I stared through the bars of the cage, at their dark shapes and glinting eyes. One pressed its muzzle against the bars, giving a low growl.

Yami put an arm around my shoulders. "Stay close to me," he said, and pulled me to him, my back pressed against his chest. "We're going in the cage."

"Are they tame?" I asked.

"No."

"Then they're going to attack you?"

"Nah." Yami grinned to himself. "They know better."

The metal door creaked as we stepped inside, and juddered as Yami shut it behind us. It smelled like fur and animal musk, the sharp smell of ammonia layered beneath it. The beasts watched us from beyond arm's length, their black hides blending with the dark.

"Alright bitches," said Yami, narrowing his eyes at the skulking pack. I felt his mana surge from his skin, forming a purple aura around him. "This is Kost, she's with me."

There was a growl from the dark, and Yami took a half step forward. The largest of the beasts emerged from the pack, eight feet tall at the shoulder with a maw full of dripping teeth. It seemed to lock eyes with Yami, who froze in place, staring at it. Did he even know what he was doing? I started formulating my escape plan. The door wasn't far, and I could probably grow a shield from my forearm before the beasts reached me. Yami seemed to sense my uncertainty, because his grip on my shoulder tightened.

"He won't bite," he said. "Will you, big boy?"

I watched, holding my breath as the great beast stooped its head. Yami reached out towards it, fingers outstretched, and rubbed the creature's nose. It gave a low rumble, blinking its eyes, and Yami nudged my back. "Your turn."

I peered up at the creature. "It's going to bite me."

"He's not gonna bite you," said Yami. "He knows you're with me."

I looked up at him, still exuding that insane amount of mana, and nodded. The beast looked down at me, and I stretched out my arm.

"Try not to show fear," said Yami, unhelpfully.

I bristled, shoving my hand out towards the creature. "I'm not afraid," I said, and stopped sharply as I felt the fur on the beast's muzzle against my palm.

The beast seemed more surprised than anything as I rubbed its snout, but gave a snort and dipped its head.

"See?" said Yami. "He likes you."

I locked eyes with the creature. I was fairly sure it was only playing ball because it was afraid of Yami, but I wasn't going to say anything. "Why are you showing me your pets?"

"You said you felt like you were about to get jumped," said Yami. "This is the safest spot in the house."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "It's full of wild animals."

"Precisely," said Yami. "They won't hurt you if they know what's good for them." He scowled at the beast, and it took a step back, ears down. " And if anyone broke in, they'd get eaten." He gave me a critical look, and rubbed his chin. "But since you're injured, maybe I should stay with you too."

"You're not a hundred percent on them not eating me, huh."

He shrugged. "If anything happened, it'd be my responsibility."

We sat down, and the beast sat too, circling so his flank was at Yami's back.

Yami gestured to me, and after a moment's hesitation, I sat down beside him, my back to the beast too, and bedded down, pulling the blanket over myself.

"You wanna join my squad?" Yami asked. His eyes were closed, his arms folded behind his head.

"I-" I looked at him, his peaceful face, the slow rise and fall of his powerful chest. I wanted to touch him- he was inches away- but I couldn't bring myself to. "Do I really have a choice?"

"Sure," said Yami.

"I mean a real choice. Would there be anywhere for me to go, if I refused?"

"Mm, perhaps," Yami replied. "You're good enough in a fight that you could pass the magic knight exam, and at least one of the other squads would take you. You're young, so you could learn a trade. I could introduce you to some craftsmen I know, if that's what you wanted. And there's always a market for guards."

A trade. I thought about it for a moment, tried to imagine myself in the world I remembered from my childhood. Selling fruit, or mending shoes. I couldn't see my own face in any of those pictures. What did I actually want to do with my life? I breathed out, the notion forming on my tongue. "Would I get to kill bad guys if I joined your gang?"

"Uh-" Yami paused a beat. "I don't see why not."

"Then-" I looked up at the ceiling, the smell of animal in my nostrils. "I think I would like to stay here."


	3. My Body is Weak

"Captain! It's morning!"

The shouting registered in my brain before I was really awake, and I opened my eyes blearily. Yami was next to me, half my blanket over his chest.

Asta, the owner of the shouting, stood nervously behind the bars at the entrance to the beast room. "Captain, please wake up!" He froze when he spotted me, eyes widening.

"Uggh." Yami stirred, his eyes glowing purple as his mana spiked. "Don't wake me up! I'll kill you!" Everything in the room flinched, including the beasts.

"Okay! Sorry, captain!" Asta fled from view with a look of genuine terror.

"Tch." Yami lay back, rubbing his eyes, and looked over at me. "Oh, hey Kost. You sleep okay?"

"Mm," I nodded, propping myself up on my arms. It was weird, but I did feel pretty good. Being clean and warm was a new sensation, but not an unwelcome one.

"Good." Yami stretched, cracking his neck. "Clover folk are all about feather mattresses, but sleeping on a hard surface is better for your back."

"You sleep on the floor normally?" I asked, cocking my head. The magic knights I'd heard stories about had always seemed impossibly wealthy, sons and daughters of nobility. Yami didn't seem like he was any of those things, but it was hard to imagine him just sleeping on the hard ground.

"I've got a _futon_ ," he said. "It's like a mat that you sleep on." He gestured to the ground, hands spread. "You don't get them here, but I had a guy make one for me."

"From your home country?"

Yami stiffened, his eyes narrowing. "Yeah," he said, but I could sense that he didn't want to talk about it. He shook his head, as if shaking off a bad memory. "You wanna go get breakfast? You can meet the rest of the squad."

"Sure." I watched the beasts carefully, but none of them seemed interested in attacking us. The one we had slept on returned my gaze solemnly.

"Oh," Yami fiddled with something at his waist, turning away from me. "These are yours, by the way."

He held out my grimoire in one hand, and in the other an embroidered black cloth, the gold skull of a bull emblazoned on it. I took my grimoire first, then the cloak, balling it in my fist.

"Thank you." I hugged both the items to my chest, then unfurled the cape, examining it. "You just have these things on you all the time? To pass out?"

Yami shrugged. "They're cheaper if you buy them by the dozen. Welcome to the Black Bulls, by the way."

I smiled down at the cape. "Does that mean I have to call you captain now?"

"Only if you're into that," Yami smirked. "Otherwise, just call me what you want. I'll take Yami, boss, el capo, holy father-"

"Holy father?" I raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

Yami's look was pained, and he scratched his ear. "Well, not if you say it like that."

* * *

I smelled breakfast before I saw it, the mixed scents permeating the air as we walked up from the basement. I could pick out the smell of pork fat, and eggs, mingled with the yeasty smell of fresh bread and pastries. Seeing it on the table was unreal, it was piled so high. I was frozen in place in the doorway until Yami nudged my back. I recognised Vanessa, Asta, and Charmy, along with a half dozen people I didn't know, all talking and eating together.

"Kost!" Vanessa called, with a little wave. "You weren't in your room this morning!"

"Oh you didn't know?" Asta stopped to chew the half pancake that was in his mouth. "She was sleeping with the captain."

Silence descended on the table. The scruffy purple-haired man next to Vanessa looked like he was about to choke on his croissant, and the rest of them just stared at me. Only Asta and Charmy continued shovelling food into their mouths, oblivious.

Vanessa's mouth was open, like it had been frozen that way, and she looked at me with something like hurt in her eyes before she looked away.

Yami stepped out from behind me, one hand on my shoulder. "Everyone, this is Kost, our squad's newest member. Don't kill her. Anyone who speculates about my personal life will be hunted down and killed. By me. You got that?"

There was a chorus of intimidated _Yes Sir_ and _Yes Boss_ and _Yes Captain Yami_ from the group at the table, and the captain inclined his head with a grunt before taking a seat at the end of the table. I hesitated, though my empty stomach was making its feelings known.

"Come sit with us!" said a small, blond boy, gesturing to an empty seat between him and Asta. He smiled at me, and I smiled back awkwardly as I took the seat. "I'm Luck."

Luck. Vanessa had mentioned him the night before. "You're a lightning user, right?"

"Sure am!" Luck swiped a pastry from the plate of the pale looking man on his other side, and munched it happily. "What's your magic?"

I watched with fascination as the pale man looked sadly down at his plate, pushing a solitary flake of pastry into the middle. "Uh, bone magic."

"Cool!" Asta looked up from his breakfast, his mouth still full. "That must be why they call you the Bone Devil, right?"

"They call you the Bone Devil?" Luck's face lit up like he had just been told it was his birthday. "Are you strong?"

I took a couple of sausages and some waffles from the heaps of assorted breakfast goods. "Yeah," I said, warily. "Why?"

Luck chewed his stolen treat, eyes gleaming. "You wanna fight after breakfast? It could be your initiation!"

My eyes widened. Was this normal in the black bulls? Would I be expected to fight to prove my place in the hierarchy? I tipped a cup of syrup over my waffles. Showing fear would just encourage more aggression. "Bring it," I said.

* * *

"The new girl's fighting Luck!"

"What?"

"Let me see!"

"I brought snacks, la!"

Some of the squad had dragged a couch out of the house to watch us- there was the big guy with the earrings, and the pale guy in the hat, along with the scruffy purple haired guy. Charmy was there with a pile of food, Asta was sitting at rapt attention, and Yami stood to one side with one of the others, a guy with shaggy dark blond hair, but Vanessa was nowhere to be seen. My heart fell. Had I really offended her? She'd seemed so kind.

"Ready?" Luck asked, tilting his head.

I nodded, and our match began.

Luck darted backwards. "Catch me if you can!"

I let the breath escape from my lips in a low hiss. He was fast. Faster than the lightning user who had nearly killed me back in the forest. But the clearing behind the black bulls' base was a different situation. I wasn't outnumbered. And I had time to prepare.

I called my grimoire forth, and the pages made their familiar sound, the bones in the spine clicking softly as it unfolded.

 _Bone blade._ I left the point sharp as the blade extended from my hand, but blunted the edges. This wasn't a life-and-death match.

 _Throw the bones._ I cast the dice to the ground, hoping for a less ambiguous answer than before. This time, they came through for me. Three seconds, on the left side. _Throw the bones._ I repeated the spell, expending more mana, and rolled the dice again. They gave the pattern. The first attack would be from the left side, then from the right, then above, then a feint from the left.

I didn't need to match Luck's speed if I knew when he would attack and from what direction.

I looked back at Yami, who stood watching me, a lit cigarette in his mouth and his eyes curious. _Bone spurs._ I grew spikes down from my heels, planting myself in the earth.

Luck zipped around me, his speed great enough that his movements were nearly impossible to predict. He was trying to bait me out- force me to spend mana chasing him. He came in hard from my left, as the dice had predicted, and I caught him round the midriff with the flat of my sword as he came in. The spikes in my heels ensured I stopped him dead, and my enhanced strength sent him flying.

He laughed as he skidded backwards, lightning magic encasing his feet and digging grooves in the ground as he whooped. "Hoo! You're actually strong!" He grinned, his eyes taking on a manic gleam as he wiped his mouth. "Okay, I'm gonna get serious now!" Luck giggled to himself as his magic encased his hands in giant, crackling claws.

He wasn't serious already? I shifted my stance; a little lower, a little wider, and counted the seconds in my mind. The right. I cleared my mind, listening for his mana as he started his approach. I hit him with the hilt of my weapon this time, winding him, and tried to follow up with a swing, but he jolted backwards, faster than I could turn the sword.

Throw the bones had only predicted the first five attacks. After that, I was by myself, dependent on my own senses and reflexes. I was running out of time.

Luck's attack from above came so quickly that I barely had time to block, let alone counterattack, and there was a groan from the assembled black bulls as he bounced off of me, swinging round to the left. I ignored the feint, leaving my left side open, and swung at him as he came in from the right, his lightning claws outstretched. A solid hit, but Luck crossed his forearms, and all I managed was to bat him backwards again.

"This is so fun!" Luck grinned at me as he circled, faster than my eyes could follow. With any luck, I'd dented his confidence in hitting me in melee, and he'd try some long-range attacks instead. The air crackled as he charged up a big shot. I knew the type- a lightning attack that would hit the tallest thing around. I couldn't dodge it, or block it. My best chance would probably be to lie low to the ground and hope it hit something else, but that would slow me down a lot. The saving grace was that a spell that big took a second or two to charge.

 _Bone Lance._ I focused, retracting the spurs in my feet and growing out the hilt of my bone sword until it was a spear. I rammed the tip into the ground just as Luck's spell culminated. The lightning hit the haft first, and directed itself down to the point, my fingers tingling as the electricity rushed past them. Luck followed close behind, swinging with his claws, and I swung at him with the haft, forcing him back. He ducked under my spear and came up with a punch, hitting me squarely in the chest. I went flying back, stabbing at the ground to stop myself hitting a the side of the house. Too slow. I was way too slow.

 _Throw the bones._ I cast a third time, but Luck was already on top of me, blocking my view of the runes. I twisted away, turning a hit to my stomach into a shoulder hit, but Luck was already following up with a kick. I staggered back under the force of it, readying a counter as I tasted blood. Luck blocked easily, retaliating with a swipe of his claws that sent me staggering again, and following with an uppercut that knocked me into the air. Luck jumped after me, and I braced my body as he kicked me through the wall.

I barely had time to register my surroundings as I flew backwards, stabbing the floor with my spear to slow myself and sending tiles flying. Luck shot through the hole I had left, and I braced for impact before I noticed a flicker out of the corner of my eye, and Yami stepped through some sort of spatial doorway. I froze, stupefied.

"Don't smash things," said Yami, flatly, as Luck hit me in the side of the face. I crashed backwards, seeing stars. "And no killing!"

"Okay, sorry!" Luck laughed as he jumped away, zipping out the hole in the wall.

I got to my feet with a grimace, and followed him out, launching myself out of the house and well into the garden. I landed on my feet, spear point up, and Luck was waiting, his grin manic.

"Stop." Yami emerged from a second portal, next to the couch. "Victory goes to Luck."

What? I staggered back, wiping blood from my mouth.

"Aw, do we have to stop?" chirped Luck. He looked at me, eyes bright as he dismissed his gauntlets. "That was so fun," he said, in a stage whisper.

I rubbed my jaw where he had punched me. "Was it?"

"Mhm!" Luck nodded, and then, to my surprise, he hugged me, head against my chest. I nearly stabbed him out of reflex. "Welcome to the Black Bulls," he said.

I pulled back. "I lost, though."

"But you passed my initiation." Luck's smile was sly. "We should try and kill each other again sometime."

"Yeah," I said, grimly. "Okay, sure."

Luck squeezed me hard, his face happy. "You're the best, Kost! I'll see you later, okay?"

The other squad members disbanded and went inside, except for Yami, who sat on the wall by the couch, smoking. I sat down too, digging the point of my spear into the ground.

I looked over at Yami, pouting slightly despite myself. "Why'd you call the match?"

He took his cigarette out of his mouth. "Because you and Luck are both maniacs. You would have kept going until one of you died or the whole place collapsed."

"Then why let Luck win?"

"You were flagging," said Yami, hopping down off the wall. "Luck would beat you eventually, even if I let it play out."

"If I'd just had a better tactic-" I started, scowling.

"Kost-" Yami shook his head as he squatted down next to me. "Your weak point isn't your mana amount, or your methods. It's _these_." He picked up my arm by the wrist and wiggled it. Held in his giant hand, it did look scrawny. "You're relying too much on your reinforcement magic to support your body."

"That's not true," I protested. "I'm strong."

"Oh yeah?" Yami smirked. "Then walk back to the house. _Without_ your reinforcement magic. You can do that, right?"

"Sure I can." Frowning, I swatted away the arm he held out to help me up, and pulled myself to my feet. Slowly, I pulled my mana inwards, out of my limbs and core. My knees buckled inwards, and I grabbed Yami to steady myself.

The big guy's expression was neutral as he exhaled smoke. "Take your time."

Damn him. I took a breath. My body was so heavy, heavier than I remembered it being. Even breathing was a little difficult. I released Yami's shoulder, swallowed, and took a step.

My knee started to buckle, so I swung my other leg forward, taking my weight before I fell. I stepped forward again, grunting with frustration as my ankle gave out, and I fell. I pushed myself up onto my knees with a snarl. I could still do it. I would show-

"Stop," said Yami. I heard him get to his feet behind me. "I said walk, not crawl."

Shaking with anger at my body's betrayal, I got up again. This time I made it three steps before I fell, crashing face-first into the dirt. I could feel Yami's eyes on me. Did he pity me?

"I can do it," I insisted, biting back anger.

"No," said Yami. "You can't. At least not right now." He offered me his hand again. "We could sit here all day and you wouldn't make it more than a few steps without your magic supporting you. I know you're a stubborn little hardass already, you don't need to waste my time showing it off."

Reluctantly, I took his arm, and he pulled me up. I looked down at my hands, my thin forearms. I was barely more than bones- even the dress that Vanessa had given me gaped sadly at the front. "You just want me to accept that I'm weak?"

Yami looked down at me, eyes half-lidded. "I never said that."

"Then what do you want me to do?"

"It's not about what _I_ want," said Yami. "It's your life, after all."


	4. Worm Burner

My head was still spinning as I walked back to the house, my legs once more shored up by mana. I couldn't even beat a small boy. I could barely walk without my magic. How was I meant to fix this? Had Yami made a mistake, inviting me to the squad? Lost in thought, I nearly missed the squad member waiting for me inside the door.

He stepped in front of me as I came in, a young man with narrow shoulders and dark blond hair that nearly covered the hoop earrings he wore. His squad cape was in pristine condition compared to Yami's, and his tunic covered his arms to the wrist.

"Hey," he said, pushing his fringe from his face. "Thought you might like this." He put his hand forward, offering me something bundled in a wet-looking cloth.

"What is that? Some kind of attack?" I scowled. I wasn't really in a position to fight, but my mana spiked reflexively, ready to make a bone shield over my arms and face.

"N-no-" Finral backed off a half-step. "It's just some ice I got, look." He peeled back a corner of the material, and I got a glimpse of something white inside. "For your face."

"Oh." I rubbed my jaw where Luck's fist had connected, feeling bad. The guy was just being nice. Why had I assumed he was about to attack me? "Thank you," I added belatedly, taking the packet. "I didn't get your name."

"It's Finral. Finral Roulacase." He gave a mock bow, twirling his hand. "I work with the captain a lot."

I pressed the packet of snow to my face. "You're an ice mage?"

"Space," said Finral, with a small, proud smile. "I just hopped up to a mountaintop to fetch that."

That must have been the magic that Yami had used to teleport. "That must be really useful," I said, imagining him hunting down enemies. "Can you teleport things out of people?"

"Out of people?"

I shrugged. "Y'know, organs and stuff. Can you teleport half a person?"

Finral paled visibly. "I've never tried." He scratched his head. "I don't know what impression you got of us Black Bulls, but not all of us are as bloodthirsty as Luck. Most of us are pretty nice guys. Not that Luck's not nice-" he added hurriedly. "But he's Luck."

What was the point of magic if you couldn't use it to defend yourself? I wanted to point it out, but something stopped me. Maybe it was the handful of mountain snow that I nursed against my bruised face. "Sorry." I grimaced. "It's just everyone I've met here has been an awesome fighter- Yami and Luck. I just assumed-"

Finral's expression was strained, and I got the feeling that I'd just said exactly the wrong thing. "Yeah, well, we're not all like that," he said. "My power's best for support."

"That must be hard."

"Ah, it's not so bad," said Finral. "But enough about me, let's talk about you. How'd you and the captain end up together?"

What had led him to that assumption? Did all of the squad think I was shacking up with their captain, after what Asta said? I flushed. "I'm not his girlfriend. I've never even dated anyone."

"Really?" Finral looked doubtful. "Asta said you-" he trailed off, not making eye contact.

I spread my free hand helplessly. "I couldn't sleep, so he took me down to the beast room. He let me pet his wolf. That's all. "

Finral stared at me, his mouth slightly open.

I bit down my irritation. Did the man's mind exist only in the gutter? "Nothing happened," I clarified. "You've got the wrong idea."

"I guess it figures." Finral cleared his throat, shaking his head. "Asta is an idiot, he probably didn't even know what he was saying. Plus, if you and Yami were really together, there's no way Yami wouldn't own it. I mean, if I had a cute girlfriend like you, I'd want to show her off to all my friends." He rubbed his chin, his eyes calculating. "You're not looking for a boyfriend, are you?"

"I-" Now it was my turn to be taken aback. I hadn't thought about that kind of thing in just about forever. Had there been a boy I liked, back before I got my grimoire? There had been boys I played with, from the farms, but I couldn't remember their faces anymore. They were just shadows in my memory, blank shapes with names attached. And in the woods, there had been no-one. "I hadn't-"

"Oi, Finral!" The purple-haired guy who'd been sitting next to Vanessa at breakfast burst in, interposing himself between us and getting right up in Finral's face. He was a hair shorter than Finral, so the effect was less intimidating than it might have been. "You can't talk like that to the captain's girl."

"She's not his girlfriend, she said so." Finral made eye contact over the other guy's shoulder. "This is Magna Swing, by the way. He's a violent delinquent with no manners and less culture."

Magna pulled a face, his grimoire hovering before him, and I felt his mana spike as he reached for it, grabbing the handle of something. "I'll violent delinquent you, you perverted toilet taxi!"

_Bone Shell._ I called the spell without thinking, the bone plates covering my skull and coiling in horns around my ears. Finral gave a small scream and vanished into a Finral-sized space-door.

"You better run," Magna muttered to the space Finral had been, before turning to face me, screaming in fear, and hitting me round the head with a flaming bat.

* * *

The village of Barrow was too small to have its own grimoire tower, so when we were fifteen they sent us to nearby Ardua for the ceremony.

The road back to Barrow was winding, a stony dirt track through the trees that jolted the cart as we ran over roots. My grimoire was warm between my fingers as the others showed off their new magics. Sen, the farmer's daughter, made a doll out of her wheat magic, and had it walk around the floor of the cart, leaving little puffs of flour dust in its wake. Others showed off dancing flames from their hands, or gusts of wind that could float a feather in the air. Nearing the village, we could smell smoke, and I imagined the festival that the village would put on to welcome us home, my parents waiting to congratulate me on my grimoire.

"What did you get, Kost?" asked Sen, sitting her wheat doll on her knee.

I hugged my grimoire to my chest. "Bone magic."

"Figures that you'd get something weird," said Sen. Try as I might, I no longer remembered her face, just a blank space where her golden hair ended. "You'll be able to help your family with that, though." My father was the village's doctor, and my mother worked beside him as the nurse.

"Yeah," I nodded. "You, too."

The smoke got thicker as we headed uphill, and the driver reined in the horse. There was a sickly sweet edge to it, a smell that made me uneasy.

Tucking my grimoire into my shirt, I shinned up the outside of the cart and onto the canvas covering. From there, I should have been able to see Barrow, the lanterns on the hill, and the farmers and villagers waiting together to welcome us back. Instead, I saw fire. Not a celebratory bonfire, but something bigger, with black smoke that stung my eyes. There were shapes overhead- men on brooms, hooting and laughing with each other. It didn't take a genius to put the two things together.

I was the doctor's daughter, after all. I knew what a funeral pyre smelled like.

* * *

"Oh man," Magna whined, pulling his hand over his face. "What do I do? Oh fuck. Yami's gonna kill me."

It took me a moment to register my position as I came to, and to pull myself from my memory. I was lying on my back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, an odd, wet sensation on the side of my head. One half of the bone shell over my head remained, limiting my vision in that eye to its narrow slit, but the other was in burnt shards over the ground. I breathed in, checking my body with my magic, and found my spine was bent at an odd angle. Ah. Broken neck. Not the nicest injury, but not the first time I'd dealt with it either.

"Ugh." I reached for my face and twisted, pulling my head back into position, and poured what remained of my mana into my vertebrae, willing them to heal.

Magna stopped mid-speech, his face frozen in an expression of shock. "You're not dead!"

I tensed, but he didn't seem intent on finishing the job. I peered up at him. "No?" I wiggled my jaw from side to side experimentally as I sat up- no breakages. The bone shell had taken the brunt of the hit. A good thing too, otherwise he might have caved in my head for real.

"You're not dead." To my surprise, Magna hurled himself at me, gripping my arms tightly, and shook me. "I thought I'd killed you! Don't scare me like that, dammit!"

I growled as he squeezed the bruises Luck had given me. Or maybe those were the bruises from the day before- it was hard to differentiate the two. "Is this how you usually introduce yourself?" I asked. "Can't say I'm a fan."

His jaw twitched. "It was an accident! I thought you were a monster!"

"Maybe I am," I said, grimacing as I used the wall to haul myself to my feet. My magic had allowed me to heal my bones, but the rest of my body was another thing, and reinforcement magic could only compensate so much.

* * *

Just how big was the Black Bulls' base? After a half hour of trying and failing to look for my room in the house's endless corridors, I headed downstairs to see the beasts instead. Asta was down there already, with cleaning supplies and a bucket of food.

I stood leaning my back against the wall as Asta approached the cage, his face scrunched in concentration. "Good boys," he said, a note of trepidation in his voice as he reached into the bucket of meat at his feet and pulled out what looked like a leg of lamb. The beasts crowded before him at the bars, drool glistening on their jowls and fangs. "Don't bite me now," he said, holding the bone in front of him.

He turned as he noticed me. "Oh, hi Kost!" He waved.

"Asta!" I looked on in horror as the beast's head lunged from between the bars, taking Asta's entire arm in its mouth.

"Aaagh!" Asta twisted, grabbing the beast's nose with his free hand, trying to pry its jaws apart. "No! Bad dog!"

Did he need help? I staggered forward, but Asta had already parted the beast's jaws and extracted his saliva-coated arm. And, I realised with a chill, I hadn't sensed a jot of mana from him as he did it. "Are you okay?"

"Don't worry, I'm fine." He grinned at me, rubbing the back of his head. "They do that all the time."

"You did that without using magic?"

"Well, yeah." Asta's habitual smile dropped for a second. "I don't have any magic, so I trained my body instead."

"You're really strong," I said, looking at him. He was shorter than me by a few inches and not particularly broad, but he was incredibly muscular, veins prominent on his forearms.

"Thanks!" Asta beamed. "I'm gonna be the wizard king some day."

"How did you do it?"

"Huh?" Asta scratched his ear. "You just have to put your hand on the nose somewhere and pull your arms apart to get him to open his mouth, it's not hard."

"No," I shook my head. "I mean, your body. How did you train it?"

"Oh!" Asta brightened as he fished another piece of meat from the bucket and waved it in front of the beasts, apparently undeterred by having been almost eaten. This time the beasts simply snatched the food from his palm. "I just worked out, y'know, a load."

I frowned, an idea taking shape in my head. If my body was my weak point, I would make sure it wasn't. "Would you show me how?"

"I could," ventured Asta cautiously. He frowned. "But, you have magic. Do you need my kind of training?"

"I want to be stronger," I said. "Is that so hard to understand?"

Asta seemed to think for a moment. "Okay," he said finally, and he thrust his index finger at my chest. "I'll teach you. Meet me tomorrow, at dawn!"


	5. The Bar

The rest of the day went by. I didn't see Vanessa, or Yami for that matter, but Finral glommed onto me at dinner and introduced me to more of the bulls. Gordon, the pale, dark-eyed man whose pastry Luck had stolen at breakfast, informed me that he was Asta's best friend and that he hoped we could be friends too. Gauche, an imposing mage with brown hair that covered much of his face, showed me a picture of his younger sister and informed me that I could never be as beautiful or important as her. Grey, a blue-haired woman a little shorter than me, introduced herself as quickly as she possibly could before going to hide behind one of the large armchairs in the lounge, which Finral assured me was normal, and Noelle, a girl with flowing silver hair, gave me her full name and lineage, seeming relieved when I told her I was just a commoner from Barrow. Mostly I just let Finral talk, which he was happy to do, telling me stories about the squad and their adventures, but I found my eyes straying to the space that Yami's absence left. My mind strayed too, to unflattering thoughts, wondering if he was out, hunting beasts or rescuing other lost girls, and I scolded myself for it. Yami had been good to me, and no matter how I might feel, he owed me nothing.

I failed to find my bedroom again. No matter which way I turned, the corridors seemed to lead me to the same place.

"Seems like the house has decided this is where I belong," I said, to no-one in particular as I approached the bars of the beast room. The largest of the beasts gave a low growl, his ears bent back. I hadn't been in there without Yami. Would they respect me? Or would they try to eat me, as they had Asta? I weighed my options. My mana had been depleted by my fight with Luck and my healing, but I'd had a day to laze around and eat, so I probably had enough in me for a serious fight again, even if my body hadn't recovered. I locked eyes with the beast, and he exhaled, eyeing me up.

"Okay," I said. "Here's the deal. I'm sleeping here tonight. Any one of you tries to eat me, I rip your legs off and beat you with them."

I stared hard at the big creature, and he sniffed, his ears returning to normal position. It seemed like my threat was threatening enough. Still watching the creatures carefully, I stepped inside the cage. In an instant, I was alone, and afraid again, a girl in the forest, surrounded by towering trees. The sensation of a beast's breath on my skin brought me round again. No, I realised, as the beast pushed its grizzled snout against my shoulder. Yami might not have been there to lull me to sleep with sardonic comments, but I wasn't alone anymore.

In the morning, Asta waited for me outside as he had promised, stripped down to a simple shirt and trousers. I'd borrowed an old tunic and trouser set from Charmy, both of which were too small for me, which made them more like a crop top and shorts. Grey was closer to my build, but after she'd introduced herself, she'd made herself scarce, and I felt like chasing down a member of the squad just to borrow clothes was a bad look. And besides, even if Charmy's old clothes were a bit short on me, they were still less revealing than Vanessa's. The morning was brisk, and I could see my breath condense in the air in front of me.

"You ready?" Asta asked, his face one giant, cheesy grin.

"Yeah," I bowed my head grimly, folding my hands together. "Please teach me."

He laughed. "You are way too serious about this."

"Isn't it a serious thing?" I asked.

"I guess. Okay, we'll start off with something gentle. We're going to jog up to the top of that hill, there-" Asta pointed.

"Jogging?" I swallowed. I hadn't told Asta just how weak my body was, but I hoped he would intuit it.

"Don't worry, it's not hard." Asta beamed. "If you get stuck, then I can help you."

"Okay," I inclined my head. "I'll do my best."

My body trembled as I drew back my reinforcement magic from my limbs, and my muscles seeming to cling to it, shaking as I ripped the mana from them, forcing them to support my weight on their own.

Asta nodded. "Okay! Let's do this!" He set off at a slow jog, waving at me to follow him.

I put one foot in front of the other, and managed three rather shaky steps before faceplanting in the dirt.

"You fell! Are you okay?" Asta was standing over me almost instantly, his face a picture of concern.

"It's nothing," I grunted, pulling myself to my knees.

"You can walk usually," said Asta, scratching his head.

I shook my head. "That's with the reinforcement magic. Without it, my body's like this-" I gestured, my legs shaking as I stood. It should have been effortless, but that simple act took all of my strength to achieve. "That's why I asked for your help."

Asta stared at me. "You're like Henry," he said.

I frowned at Asta, nearly overbalancing as I turned. "Who's Henry?"

"He's like you. Well, he was. He was very sick and stuck in his bed for a long time, and his body went sort of like yours."

"He's a black bull?" I asked.

Asta nodded. "Yeah," he said. "But he's got a condition where he drains people's mana, so he can't talk to people really. I don't have any magic, so I can talk to him anytime."

Interesting. So there was a place for cripples in Yami's magic knight squad. It explained why he hadn't hesitated to invite me. "You said he couldn't walk," I said. "He can walk now?"

"Yeah," said Asta. "He used a kind of frame-" he scratched his ear, frowning. "I can't really describe it."

"Like a walking stick?"

"Sort of."

I would look like an old woman using something like that. I didn't want to look like an old woman. But what was more important, my vanity, or my strength? I wasn't winning any competitions for looks, in any case.

"I want to try again," I said.

"What? The run?" Asta looked doubtful.

"Yeah." I breathed in, willing my legs to stop shaking. I'd stood this whole conversation without leaning on my mana, and they hurt.

"Okay." Asta's face was serious. "I'll stay with you. You can grab my arm if you start to fall."

"You don't mind?" I asked. "I'm useless at this."

Asta shrugged. "You're my kouhai," he said, seriously. "And you asked for my help."

He jogged in circles around me, shouting encouragement as I completed the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other. Every few steps I would stumble, and hate myself for a hot second as I was forced to grab Asta for support. It wasn't just my legs that struggled, but the muscles in my core and back, and my arms as I dragged myself upright each time. Before long, my lungs were burning, spots forming at the edge of my vision as my unreinforced heart struggled to keep up with the demands my body placed on it.

We climbed the hill, somehow. I hardly noticed the passage of the scenery, I was so focused on my own suffering, but I made it up, to where the conifers cleared to show a view over the valley, the morning sun burning away the night's mist.

"We're here," said Asta, and I let myself collapse into the dirt, gasping for air like a fish, the beauty of the nature around us lost on me. "Let's rest five minutes and then head back!"

But there was a good feeling as the breath burned in my throat. I had fallen, more times than I could count, and my body was screaming at me, but I had made it.

By the time we got back it was nearly noon, and the base was empty, save for Magna and Luck chasing each other round the kitchen, yelling something about meat. I refreshed the reinforcement magic in my limbs as we walked in, half expecting an attack from one of them. It did nothing for the discomfort in my legs, but at least I could move normally.

"I was going to show you some other exercises," said Asta, "But I'm not sure you're strong enough yet, so I wanna try something different."

I followed Asta through the house, taking what seemed like a circular route round the back of the kitchen.

It seemed like the house was never the same way twice. Were all houses like that, and I had forgotten? "How do you know the way?" I asked Asta, as we turned a corner that I was fairly sure would lead back into the kitchen but in fact turned down into a narrow flight of wooden stairs.

"I clean the place every day," said Asta, "So I always find out where everything is."

We headed together down a corridor that looked to be on the same level as the beast room, below ground with stone flagstones on the floor, a double door at its end. Asta pushed open the door, his mouth open as if he were about to say something, but he stopped.

The density of mana in the room was almost unbearable, filling the air with a dark purple haze. I recognised the user immediately. Yami. He was on his back, lifting an obscene amount of weight on a metal bar above him.

Asta froze, one hand on the door. "Cap-"

Yami's head snapped to look at us, the weight still suspended midair. "WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT INTERRUPTING MY WORKOUT? I'LL KILL YOU-"

His eyes were two purple points in the darkness, focused on my back. "Not you," said Yami, as Asta fled, catching my collar with his fingers. So fast. I hadn't even seen him move. I stopped in my tracks as I watched Asta disappear from view.

Seemingly satisfied that I wasn't about to flee the scene, Yami released his grip and sat on the edge of the bench, rubbing his neck with a towel. "You want to learn how to work out?" he asked.

I flushed. In my idle fantasies, I'd imagined I'd be able to build my strength without Yami noticing, and surprise him with it, not parade myself in front of him at my most pathetic. I wished for a moment that I had stone magic, not bone, so that I could make the floor open and swallow me up. "Yeah."

"I thought you'd slack off a bit," he said, conversationally. "You've been living in the woods for fuck knows how long, hunting criminals. Your body's pretty much eaten itself to survive."

"So what?" I rankled. "You were just going to let me sit on my ass?"

"You say that like it's a bad thing," said Yami. "Sitting on your ass is important sometimes. Hell, some of the best times I've had I've been sat on my ass." He shook his head, rubbing his hair with the the towel. "I was gonna put you to work eventually, once you'd recovered."

"And you get to be the judge of that?" This time, my anger took me by surprise. "You get to pick how long I sit on my ass, how long I have to stand still, doing nothing?" I took a breath, the words coming fierce from my chest. "Are you that powerful, that you can put the whole world on pause just so one of your squad can slack off? I've been out there. It sucks. There aren't enough people who give a damn about what's right." I swallowed, my hands clenching into fists. "If your plan is just waiting for me to recover, put me back in the forest. At least I was doing some good there."

"Calm your tits, woman," said Yami. "I'll train you."

"What?" I blinked, the wind taken from my sails. "You're going to teach me?"

"Sure," he said. "But first, you're gonna make up for interrupting me just now." Yami pulled a face, cracking his neck. "You see those plates, with the twenty on the side?" Yami inclined his head towards the wall. "I need three more of those, on each side of the bar."

He lit up a cigarette as I walked over to the weight rack, shielding the flame from the lighter with his free hand. His mana was still covering the room, and I had to sharpen my focus on my own reinforcement magic to keep it running as I stacked the six plates in my arms and carried them to the bar. Yami smiled from behind his cigarette as he watched me load each side. Was he toying with me?

"You know how to spot?"

"No," I admitted.

"Well, it's not complicated," said Yami. "You stand there." He pointed to the space behind the bar. "If I get stuck under the bar, you have to help lift it off me."

I frowned at the bar, its middle bowing sadly from the weight on each side. "I'm not sure I could lift all that."

"You won't need to." Yami shrugged. "Just the bit I can't lift."

"You're putting a lot of trust in me here," I said, poking the plates with one finger. "What if I just left you stuck under it?"

"You wouldn't." Yami stubbed out his cigarette and put his towel on the floor. "You've had plenty of chances to kill me, and you haven't taken any of them yet."

He had me there. "I'm sorry to disappoint."

"No, you're not." Yami smirked as he slid under the bar, a grim gleam in his dark eyes.

I hated to admit it, but he was beautiful. I watched him move, bracing himself, his broad chest proud. Muscles bulged and strained under his skin. His arms moved, and the bar moved, bowing in the middle like it was made of toffee and not steel. And his aura hit me like a wall of mana. Standing at the door had been bad enough, but here I was practically standing inside his aura, the pressure immense. I narrowed my eyes and let my own mana flare to the surface of my skin, countering the pressure. Yami grunted as he completed the final rep, returning the bar to its place.

He sat up, and looked over his shoulder at me as he retrieved his cigarette. "Your turn, little psycho."

"I have a name, you know," I grumbled as we swapped places, stripping the weights from the bar. It looked less intimidating without several hundred kilos strapped to each side, but it was still a serious piece of metal. Swallowing, I started to draw my reinforcement magic back from my body, and reached up, wrapping my fingers around the bar.

"Your form is wrong." Yami blew smoke from his mouth. "If you'd paid attention rather than just checking me out you would know that already."

I scowled, feeling a blush spread from my cheeks to my ears. I wanted to deny it, but I had been staring. "Just tell me what I'm doing wrong," I snapped.

Yami grinned down at me. Was he enjoying this? His big hands covered mine, pulling them away from each other. "You want at least this distance, here," he said. "Pinch your shoulderblades together, and plant your feet. Good," he said, once I'd followed his instructions. "Now you can start."

For the second time, I drew the reinforcement away from my limbs, my core, and finally my chest, balling the mana inside me to a single point. Earlier, it had been hard enough to do, but on my back on the bench, I felt exposed, even with Yami looking down on me. I copied the movement I had seen him make, pushing the bar up from its resting place, and my arms started to shake as they held up the weight. Gritting my teeth, I drew the bar to my chest, faster than I intended, and started to push up again. It was heavy, heavier than anything, and I managed to raise it about an inch before it stopped, my arms starting to tremble.

"If you need help," said Yami. "You just need to ask me."

"No," I growled. The bar stubbornly held its position in space, and I drew in breath through my teeth. If I used my magic, it would fly up, but that would achieve nothing but cementing my failure. Each second was an eternity, and though pain had long been a friend to me, curled close to my body, this pain was insistent, coursing through my failing arms. "I can do this," I said, although I didn't entirely believe myself. This should be easy. But it wasn't. I closed my eyes, envisioning my body as one force acting together, from the soles of my feet to the palms of my hands, and pushed. My arms trembled, and I hissed a lungful of air out as the bar remained stuck in the air, but slowly, shakily, it rose again, until my arms were straight.

"Stubborn," said Yami, though I thought I heard a note of amusement in his voice. "Think I've got a kid's bar round here somewhere, hang on."

"What?" I sat up, indignant. "But I did it. I moved the bar."

Yami ignored me, digging through the cabinets until he pulled out a steel bar, smaller than the one I'd moved. He picked up the first bar between thumb and forefinger, and rested it against the wall, replacing it with the small one. "Yeah," he said. "Now move this one."

I bristled "This is patronising-"

"I said I'd train you, didn't I?" Yami took his cigarette from his mouth, a small smirk hovering on his lips. "Now move this one, as many times as you can."


	6. Kost Benefit Analysis

My training was slower than I wanted it to be. A few weeks in, and I could walk half the length of the garden without support. Yami had taken to collaring me in the evenings and dragging me to his workouts, though I did more loading and unloading of his weights than I did exercises of my own. I started helping Asta with his chores, too, though he didn't ask me to. I was elbow deep in a soapy pan when I heard a hubbub from the common room. Luck shot past me, clutching a coinpurse as I went in, and I was surprised to find most of the squad in there.

"What's happening?" I asked as I joined them.

"Getting paid twice in a fortnight!" Asta burbled happily. "Sister Lily will be able to buy so many tatoes."

"Yeah, makes up for the month Yami forgot the paperwork and no-one got paid." Finral slouched down the stairs, hiding a yawn behind his sleeve.

"You don't get paid this often usually?"

"Well, officially, it should be monthly," said Finral. "But have you seen this place?" He waved his hand in the direction of Charmy, who was biting one of her coins, and Gauche, who was rubbing his face with a picture of his sister and muttering.

* * *

"Kost," said Yami, as he reached the end of the list. The common room was empty except for the two of us, the rest of the squad having already left through a portal that Finral had made.

I blinked. "I get pay?"

"You're a magic knight," said Yami with a shrug. "And you work about as hard as any of those slackers."

I cupped my hands as Yami passed me the coin purse. It was heavy. Magic knight pay was high. I'd seen the sums my father had paid for rare plants for medicines, and this would have bought a month's supply of something like the painkilling poppies bought in from the mountains. "This is too much," I said.

Yami peered over my shoulder, squinting at the coin purse. "You're right," he said, taking a handful of the coins.

"Hey!" I grabbed for his hand, but he was faster than me. "You can't do that."

"Oh, can't I?" Yami grinned, holding his hand just out of my reach.

I didn't embarrass myself my reaching for it- Yami would just move out of my way. "It's stealing."

"Is it?" Yami's expression was sly. "You mean you don't want to make a heartfelt gift of appreciation to your captain?"

I pulled a face. "Tch. What am I buying you, exactly?"

"You're paying off my bar tab," said Yami, flatly.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "That's not a real gift. Pay your own damn tab."

"Huh?" Yami gave me a dark look, and for a second I thought he was about to threaten to kill me, but he didn't. "Fine. You were grateful, so you bought me a case of heart kingdom whiskey, the twelve year old stuff. And a couple of rounds at the bar for everyone," he said, squinting at the coinage before stuffing it in a pocket.

"I guess that's okay," I allowed. "You're a good teacher."

"And you're my top student," said Yami, ruffling my hair, and I hated myself for the emotion that evoked in me, the way his touch made my heart jump like a well-trained animal. "Later," he said, raising a hand to me as he sauntered away through Finral's portal, the rain bouncing as it hit his broad shoulders.

I was pretty sure I was his only student.

I tried to compose myself. Had Yami just scammed me out of over half my pay? He had. And what's worse, I had let him. I pocketed the remaining coins as I stepped through the starry gate and out into the city streets. I hadn't even asked for him to train me, not really. If anyone really deserved a thank-you present for training me, it was Asta, who had taken to following beside me doing handstand push-ups as I ran.

The shops in Kikka were more glamorous than anything I'd ever seen. I'd sometimes accompanied my father on his work to Ardua and Furlough, the two larger towns near Barrow, but their tiny selection of shops didn't even hold a candle to Kikka's shopping district. I passed a shop that seemed entirely dedicated to women's lingerie, the mannequin in the window clad in triangles of delicate white lace, and a second that only sold hats with feathers in. Most of the things in the windows didn't have price tags on, but the ones that did made my head spin.

I passed another window, and a pair of shoes gleamed in the display inside. They were soft leather, with a small heel, and a silver buckle shaped like a skull.

I looked at the shoes and then down at my feet. Shoes weren't a problem for me, exactly- my soles had hardened in the time I'd spent in the forest- but the other stuff was getting to be an issue. Wearing clothes that were too small for me hadn't been a problem when I looked like an emaciated stray, but my body had started to fill out. Already I'd ripped the sleeves of both of my borrowed tunics. Vanessa was meant to mend them, but she hadn't spoken to me since Asta had spouted off about me sleeping with the captain, and she hadn't given me the time to explain myself either. The few times I'd run into her, she'd been blackout drunk or pretended she was needed urgently elsewhere.

"It's raining." Gordon's voice was soft as the shadow of his umbrella fell over me. "Would you like to get a cream tea with me?" he asked. "Charmy was talking about a place where they use candied orange peel as well as jam in her sleep the other night, I think it's nearby."

I wrenched my gaze from the shoes in the window, looking up at Gordon's serious face. He looked solemn, but then again he always looked that way. There was no way the small handful of coins in my pocket would stretch to those shoes, or even a new outfit from the district, but a cream tea sounded doable.

"Is Asta coming too?" I asked, but Gordon shook his head, and said something about his best friend going to visit someone after his trip to the post office.

I took Gordon's arm, and we wandered off together. The cobbled streets were colder than the loam and packed earth I was used to running on, and the wet made it unpleasant, so soon I was extending my mana to the surface of the skin on my feet, stopping the worst of the cold and deflecting the rainwater that splashed near them.

After a little walking, we found the tearoom on a side street, tucked between a bookshop and a place that sold decorative candles. Small windows looked in on cozy, firelit rooms, where overstuffed armchairs were arranged haphazardly around little tables. The maitre d' looked aghast when we stepped inside, me in my ragged clothes with no shoes, and Gordon with his intimidating height and heavy eye-makeup, but her eyes went to our magic knight cloaks and she let us in. She seated us in the corner furthest from the window, by one of the fireplaces, presumably to stop us from scaring off other customers.

I curled up in my chair, letting myself sink back into the cushions. "This place is nice," I said, looking at the menu. The place didn't just offer cream teas, I noticed, but afternoon teas, patisserie, and vol au vents. A waitress hurried past into another room, carrying what looked like a tower made of tiny cucumber sandwiches to a pair of girls in blue magic knight robes.

Gordon nodded. "When Charmy likes a place well enough to sleeptalk about it it's always very good."

"What were you thinking of having?"

"I'm not sure," said Gordon, quietly. "I was thinking maybe the one with the scones."

I made our order to a frightened looking waitress, and she returned with our drinks- a pot of tea for me, and a black coffee for Gordon.

I poured myself a cup of the tea, and held the cup between my palms, savouring the warmth that flowed from the china and into my skin.

"Would you like to see what I've been making?" asked Gordon, shyly.

"You make stuff?" I asked. I'd seen Gordon writing quite a bit, like he was taking notes in little notebooks, but I'd never seen him making anything.

"I keep a collection of dolls of my friends," he said. "And since you're my newest friend, I thought I'd make one of you too."

I nodded along as Gordon pulled a figurine of me from his breast pocket, and talked about the string he had chosen for the hair and so on.

I sipped more of my tea, wondering if I should tell Gordon how creepy the doll was. Maybe I actually looked like that? The couple on the table behind me were talking, and I stopped as I heard a fragment of the conversation.

"The patisserie here is outstanding, but I don't think that there's anything here that could be as sweet as you," came the man's voice, familiar.

"Is that-" I lowered my voice. "Finral?"

Gordon's eyes focused behind me as he listened, and his eyes widened as he nodded. "So many of my friends here today," he said, with a small smile.

"I'm just not looking for that kind of relationship right now," the woman's voice was saying. Gordon's eyes widened further, this time in sympathy. I sank myself further into the armchair, making myself as small and invisible as possible. She was rejecting Finral. Poor Finral. Gordon crept up to my chair and peeked round the side of it, his feet noiseless on the tearoom carpets. Morbid curiosity got the better of me and I joined him, kneeling on my seat and peering over the back.

Finral was still pleading as the blonde girl got up from her chair and left the cafe, her long skirts swirling round her ankles.

"He seems sad," whispered Gordon.

I nodded. "Yeah."

"We should cheer him up," whispered Gordon.

Even if I didn't know the spatial mage too well, he had at least tried to be nice to me, and I still owed him for the icepack. "Okay." I watched as Finral slumped over, defeated, one hand reaching out to the retreating girl. "How do we do that?"

The waitress cleared her throat behind us as she placed a heavily laden silver cake stand on our small table.

Finral's head rotated, and his eyes widened as he spotted us. "Gordon," he said. "Kost. What are you two doing here?"

"We were getting tea," said Gordon.

"You were watching me?" Finral's voice was pained.

"Not on purpose," I said. "I mean, yeah, just now we were watching you on purpose but we didn't follow you in here or anything."

Gordon nodded. "It's an awful thing to see a precious friend in such distress."

"Gordon, I don't know what you're saying, but it's really not helping your case," said Finral. I suspected he was angry at the situation, rather than at us. But how to calm him down? It was a mystery to me.

"Would you like some cake?" I asked, eyeing up the giant stand full of cakes and scones that the cafe had furnished us with.

"I-" Finral looked at me, then at the cake stand. Light glistened from the icing on the buns on the top tier, and some of his outrage dissipated. "Gaah. You guys are weird."

Wordlessly, Gordon dished up one of the cream horns from the platter onto one of the little china plates and handed it to Finral.

Finral looked between us and the cake, conflicted, before he pulled up a chair to our table. He slumped over, chin cupped in his palms as he stared at the pastry in front of him. "I just want someone special, is that so much to ask?"

"Who needs anyone anyway?" I took a scone for myself, and sliced it in two with a blade from my finger before reaching for the jam. "Be a strong, independent magic knight."

Gordon nodded in agreement as he took the second scone, cutting it with the small knife the cafe had provided. "Every day I think about my precious friends and the memories I have of them. I don't know if I will ever know love, but even if I do it could never lessen the place I have for my friends in my heart."

"You can't talk," said Finral, ignoring Gordon. "You're a girl. It's different for you."

"What?" I scoffed, my mouth full. "Like I have romantic prospects."

"That's not true," said Finral, chewing his bun thoughtfully. "There's the captain."

"I don't think he gives a damn about me," I said. "He just took off with most of my paycheck."

"I don't think that's true," said Finral. "He cares about you a lot."

"How'd you figure that?"

"I'm Yami's right-hand man," said Finral, with a small toss of his hair. "I go everywhere with him. I'd like to think I know the man pretty well."

I squinted at Finral over my cup of tea. "You wrongly assumed I was dating him."

"Yeah, but I've never seen him cut an initiation short like yours," said Finral. "Usually we let the new guy nearly die, then haul them out of there with space magic. This time he didn't even let it get that far."

"That's just because he thinks I'm weak," I said, remembering Yami's eyes on me as I failed to walk unaided. "It's pity."

"Nah, it's more than that." Finral gave a knowing smile. "He's protective of you."

Protective? He'd watched calmly as Luck had kicked me in the face. "Sorry," I said, with a shake of my head. "I don't buy it."

"It's true," said Gordon. "He spends time with you every day."

"It's not like that." I scowled at Gordon. How had Gordon known that anyway? "We're just spending time together because he's training me."

Finral gave a low whistle. "Yami is _training_ you?"

"Is that so strange?" I demanded. "For a captain to train a knight in his squad?"

"Well, no," said Finral. "But for Yami, hell yeah, that's weird. The only training he ever gave me was making me teleport him… places." He paused. "I hope for your sake it's nothing like that."

Right. The toilet taxi thing. "It's nothing like that," I said, sourly. "We're just strength training."

"And the other night at dinner, he put a whole chicken on your plate," added Gordon, unhelpfully.

"He said he didn't want that chicken!"

Finral narrowed his eyes at me as he twigged what Gordon had said. "And you believed him?"

"I-" I felt myself grow red. Yami. Liking me? The idea made me uneasy. He was so tall, with easy grace and dark eyes that made my stomach do flips when he looked at me, and I was, well, me. I'd never been popular, even before the forest, and being a silent vigilante had hardly improved my social skills. On top of that, I was his subordinate. His student. "I wish it was like that," I said, closing my eyes. "But it's probably not. He probably just thinks I'm funny or something, I don't know."

"Wait. Wait." Finral kneaded his forehead with his hand before staring through his fingers at me. "You actually _like_ him? The old man? Mr I'm gonna kill you then take a huge dump? The fucking God of Destruction?"

"Um." I stared intently into my cup of tea. "Yeah," I said, in a small voice. Finral and Gordon stared at me.

Gordon's eyes were wide and earnest. "You should tell captain Yami how you really feel," he said. "He is a good man, and even if he really doesn't feel the same way I think he would be kind about it."

"Gordon!" I looked at him sharply, feeling my embarrassment reach my ears. I hadn't intended to let either of them know about my crush, but lying didn't sit easily with me. "I couldn't do that to the captain-" I stammered.

"Whatever Gordon just suggested, definitely don't do that," said Finral, offended on my behalf. Gordon looked sad.

* * *

Finral was in better spirits by the time we finished in the tea room, either buoyed by the food and company or distracted by the revelation of my crush on the captain. We paid up, and headed out onto the streets. Gordon held his umbrella over the three of us, one on each side of him.

I felt uneasy, but I couldn't pinpoint why. Something rasped at the edge of my awareness, and I shifted my focus, blocking out Finral's idle small-talk for a keener sense of the mana around me. The mana spiked on the periphery of my senses, and it was an aura I was intimately familiar with. It peaked, higher than I thought possible, and then it was extinguished.

_Yami._ My feet moved before my brain had a chance to start up, and my grimoire floated by my side.

_Bone shell._ The bone plates shot from my skin as I ran, armour encasing my arms and legs, horns curling either side of my head. Moving was easier than it had been in the forest, and my body felt lighter, even in full armour. I leapt from the cobbles as my armour formed across my back, and sent tiles scattering as I skidded across a tiled rooftop. I registered screaming down below, through the rain. It went something like _monster, monster._


	7. The Book

I leapt from roof to roof, the location of the aura the one fixed point in my frantic mind. The streets below blurred together as I crossed them, the bone claws on my feet clutching at chimneys and gutters, anywhere I could find purchase.

And finally, I was there. A back alley, smelling of smoke, sour alcohol and stale urine.

"Yami!" I launched myself down to street level, the cobbles erupting round me as I landed.

Yami stared at me, bemused, and I noticed through the slits in my bone helm that he was naked save for his magic knight cloak, which he wore round his waist like a loincloth. Magna was beside him, puking against a wall in a similar state of undress.

"Kost?" Yami stared at me, bemused. His cheeks were ruddy from alcohol, but aside from his lack of belongings, he didn't seem to be in any danger.

I peeled back the jaw of my helm so that I could speak. I looked around for opponents, anywhere but at Yami. "What- your mana- and why are you naked?"

"We lost everything in the casino," slurred Magna, swaying on his feet as he pushed himself away from the wall. He'd kept only his cape, which he wore like a skirt, and his glasses. "And then this idiot bet his grimoire to try and win it back."

"It was a calculated decision," growled Yami, prodding Magna in the chest. This close, I could feel his mana, though the amount was drastically reduced. The thought of some criminal with their hands on his grimoire made my skin crawl.

"I'll get it back," I said, extending a bone blade from my arm.

"No killing." Yami caught my shoulder as I moved to go in. I could smell the liquor on his breath, but his grip was firm. "They didn't rob us, we lost fair and square."

I supposed he was right. If I broke into the casino and started stabbing people just to get Yami's things back, I would become what I detested- someone who used their power to force their will on others. That meant I needed a non-violent approach. "Fine," I said, pushing Yami's hand from my shoulder. "What kind of game was it?"

"Huh?" Yami gave me a curious look.

I retracted my blade. "I mean, was it a card game, roulette wheel?"

Magna scowled. "You tryna make fun of us, new girl?"

Yami raised a hand to silence the delinquent. "Cards. Poker."

"Can you explain the rules of that one to me? I don't know it."

Yami's gaze on me was intense, and I got the feeling that he wasn't quite as drunk as he was making out to be. "It's a betting game," he said. "You're dealt cards with different values, and have to combine them with cards on the table, you put down money or you give up, and the person with the most valuable hand at the end wins."

"How many hands would I have to win?" I asked. "To get your stuff back?"

"Depends," said Yami with a shrug. "Not too many, if you can convince them to go all in."

"This is ridiculous," Magna sputtered. "Cap, she doesn't even know the rules."

But Yami was still looking at me steadily, his lips curving into a smirk. "What did you have in mind, little psycho?"

I pulled the bone shell back from my face and met his gaze. "I need all the mana you have spare."

* * *

Inside the casino was smoky and dark, two drunks already passed out at the bar. The players had been reluctant to give me a seat at the table at all. I couldn't blame them- I looked destitute. I pretty much was destitute. But once I put my money- the remnants of my wages- on the table, their faces took on a predatory cast, and they dealt me in.

There were three of them at the table, not counting the casino's dealer. An old guy with a beard, a weatherbeaten looking lady with gold jewellery, and a fat guy, who had filled a beer stein full of nuts and was drinking them rather than using his hands to eat.

The fat guy was the one Yami had lost to. I could sense the captain's grimoire on him, and Yami's curved sword rested against the back of the guy's chair.

"I fold," I said, not bothering to even look at my cards as I turned them face down towards the table. The demon on the back stared up at me, accusatory.

"Hah," the old guy leered at me. "Are you sure you know what you're doing, little girl?"

"Yes," I said. He reminded me of men I'd killed. I tried to imagine him begging for his life, with blood pouring from his throat. It didn't help.

"Oh, give her a break, Mauve." The leather-faced woman to my right pushed a stack of chips to the middle of the table. "Kid just wants to have some fun. I raise ten."

"Okay, but I'm not taking her clothes as collateral," the old guy jerked his chin towards me. "Those rags aren't worth anything."

The fat guy said nothing, just poured the nuts into his mouth and crunched them as he pushed a small stack of chips towards the middle. He won the hand.

 _Throw the bones._ When I'd told them my idea, Yami had laughed. It was brazen, bare-faced cheating. Of course, I couldn't cast at the table, but with enough mana, I could cast my divination beforehand, and know when I would have a winning hand. He'd given me his remaining mana almost casually, condensing it to a ball in his palm.

I'd let it flow through my skin, so intense that it almost seemed to burn. A hand in the runes. The number three. I needed to trust it. Trust my magic. Trust that I was doing the right thing.

I glanced down at my cards in the second hand. A pair of aces. I placed them back on the table. "Fold."

"You do realise you're still losing money, right?" The leather-faced woman gestured to the rapidly depleting stack of chips in front of me. "You can't just fold every hand."

What she said was true. Even knowing which hands I would win, folding still cost me the money from the blind, which was more than I anticipated. I shrugged. "I wasn't going to win."

"At least you know what's what." The old guy chuckled to himself as he matched the bet the fat guy had made. "Not like your captain a minute ago."

The dealer dealt out the third hand, and again I barely looked at it. "All in."

The woman sniffed. "Fold."

"Fold." The old man echoed her.

The fat man gave me a long look, crunching his peanuts, before he nodded, turning his cards towards the table.

Their blinds went to me. I'd won the hand, but I was in no better position than I had been before. Maybe Magna's drunken accusations had been right. I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

 _Throw the bones._ Gordon had arrived with Finral just after I'd completed the first casting. He'd looked at me solemnly, and told me that he believed in me. The runes held another hand, this time the fifth.

I needed a better result than winning the blind for the hands I knew that I would win. I needed to look like I knew what I was doing. The players were greedy, but they weren't stupid. So I pretended. I pushed my chips out to the middle, and folded before I got too deep. The old man won the hand with an array of exciting looking face cards- a noble flush.

For the fifth hand, I did the same, and they took the bait, the woman encouraging me with a little smile as the old man raised the stakes higher and higher. The fat man folded five rounds into the betting, but I got the old man to go all in.

"Enjoy it while it lasts, girl," grumbled the old man. "Your luck won't hold forever."

It wasn't luck that was on my side though. It was fate.

 _Throw the bones._ Yami had yelled at Finral to give me his mana, and Finral, rightfully terrified, had complied. His mana was cold and beautiful, the space between stars.

"She's cheating, it must be. Some kind of trick." The old guy scowled at me from behind his diminished pile of chips, and I froze.

"I don't sense any mana from her." It was the first time the fat man had spoken. "And it's not like she can hide anything up her sleeves. Maybe you're just salty that she's better than you."

The other two looked at him, the old man frowning, and finally, he nodded to the dealer to deal the next hand.

 _Throw the bones._ Magna had slurred an apology to me, though I wasn't a hundred percent on what for, his mana warm between his hands.

The pile of chips in front of me grew steadily larger, and the piles in front of the other players smaller. I let myself slip, let them win a few hands before I reeled them in further. I ignored the cards, ignored their faces, only the memory of my casting kept in sharp focus. The sequence.

The fat man shook the last few peanuts around the bottom of his cup. "Looks like I'm nearly out too, girly," he said, conversationally. "Not much left for you here."

"You could wager your grimoire," I said, hoping to pass the remark off as a joke.

The look he gave me told me he knew what I was after, and he nodded, tipping the last of the peanuts into his mouth. "One more hand," he said.

He wasn't stupid, but he was greedy.

 _Throw the bones._ My last casting.

* * *

The night air was clear and crisp as I stepped from the casino, satchel over my shoulder. Magna was asleep on the floor, Gordon poking him with a stick. Yami sat on an overturned bin nearby, looking up when he noticed me, and Finral looked as if he would rather be anywhere else, doing anything else.

I pulled Yami and Magna's clothes from the bag, along with Yami's katana. "These are yours," I said, throwing the bundle at chest height for Yami to catch. "And this is also yours," I added, turning Yami's grimoire in my hand and prodding him in the chest with it.

He looked down, putting his hand over the cover. "Thanks," he grunted. His eyes went to the pile of cash still in my bag, questioning.

"And this," I said, closing the satchel and hoisting it over my shoulder. "Is my grimoire retrieval fee."

* * *

The stormclouds cleared, and from my rooftop perch, the city of Kikka lit up like a creek full of fireflies. The entertainment district was rife with colourful lanterns, and the black market showed signs of hooded lights, reflected on the still-wet cobbles.

I hadn't meant to keep Yami's smokes. I just hadn't thought to give them back, the small packet lost at the bottom of my big bag of money. I turned his lighter over in my hands, flipping the lid open and closed, and observing the mechanism. The wheel struck a flint, which made a spark, igniting a wick soaked in flamable liquid. It was a clever thing, I thought- to give control over a small flame to someone of a different attribute. I flicked the wheel, lighting it, and nearly singed my eyebrows in the process.

What was the appeal of cigarettes anyway? I'd rarely seen Yami without one in his mouth, even when he was working out. I took one from the bag, and sniffed it. It didn't smell of anything special, just faintly like Yami. Maybe smoking it was the good thing. I put it in my mouth, flipped the lighter open, and used the flame to light the end. I sucked the smoke into my mouth, and it made me cough.

"Give me that." Yami plucked the cigarette from my surprised mouth. "You're gonna make yourself sick."

I looked up at Yami, now fully clothed. How had I not noticed him come after me? Even drunk, he was sure-footed, and he sat down next to me on the ridge of the roof, putting the cigarette in his own mouth.

I rubbed my tongue gainst the roof of my mouth, but the taste of smoke remained. "I was gonna give them back."

"Sure you were." Yami exhaled smoke. "Though I guess I owe you for earlier."

I was suddenly aware of how close he was sitting, and the warmth his body radiated, his arm behind me. It was different to when we trained together. If Yami was close during training, it was for a reason, like to stop me crushing my own windpipe with the barbell. Here, he didn't have a reason. He could have had the conversation from a meter away, or five. "You didn't need me," I said, with a shake of my head.

"Nah." Yami looked up at the sky. "It would have been a ballache without you." He took the cigarette out of his mouth and offered it back to me, tip still glowing deep orange.

My fingers brushed his as I took it back, and raised it to my lips.

"Try breathing the smoke into your lungs this time," said Yami, not looking at me.

I tried it, forming a seal with my lips. The end of the cigarette glowed brighter as I sucked the smoke in. It didn't taste as bad the second time, a sweet edge to it, though it tickled my throat a little. The buzz from the tobacco was a subtle, soft euphoria, the world somehow sharper around me. Yami looked at me expectantly as I exhaled, and I reluctantly passed the cigarette back to him.

He took a drag, and I leaned back onto him, my head against his shoulder, my shoulder against his chest. I felt him tense, then shift his arm around me, hand on the tiles beside me. I wanted to stay like that forever, in the space between heartbeats, smoke suspended in the night air.

"Hey, Kost," said Yami.

"Yeah?"

There was a pause, as if he was about to say something, but then he sighed. It didn't take me long to work out what he was looking at- Finral and Gordon, towing a blackout drunk Magna on the street below. Finral must have gathered enough mana to make a portal home.

Yami shook his head. "If you take up smoking, you're buying your own stuff. Don't expect me to share."


	8. The Boozehound

Worry roiled in my stomach as we returned to the hideout. Would Finral tell Yami? I watched Finral and Gordon help Magna to his room. Had they already told him, when I'd been inside cheating at cards? I'd been happy enough keeping my crush to myself, but now that it was out in the open it seemed much more serious. Yami had a fresh cigarette in his mouth and headed towards his usual spot on the sofa.

Gordon's advice echoed between my ears as I shifted my grip on the giant bag of money. I'd rejected the idea instinctively, but maybe Gordon was right. Maybe I should just nut up and talk to Yami.

"Captaain." Vanessa's voice was singsong as she swayed up to him, bottle in hand. She wore what she had the first time we'd met- a bathing suit under a squad cape, and her smile was broad and knowing. "Come drink with me."

"Mm." Yami inclined his head. "Sure, I wasn't doing anything else."

With a small sound of delight, Vanessa latched on to the captain, and he took the bottle from her hand as they walked through into another room.

I froze as I watched them go. I felt vertigo. As if the world was about to collapse around me. I couldn't stop him from going with her. He wasn't even mine, and even if he was, even if we had something, going after the two of them now would be crazy, possessive behaviour.

Yami stopped in his tracks and looked over his shoulder at me, sending Vanessa stumbling lewdly into his elbow. "You coming or not?"

What else could I do but follow?

* * *

Books lined the walls of the black bulls' library, shelves as high as ten feet, full of tomes. In the far corner, behind two perpendicular shelves, was a space with a fireplace, a table, and a pair of dark green couches. A few games sets were arrayed in a cabinet by the fireplace, and I spotted a few decks of cards and poker chips.

I wrinkled my nose. "We're drinking in the library?"

"Of course." Vanessa waved her hand airily. "Library, libation, why not?"

Yami fetched glasses and a bottle of amber liquid from inside a globe in the corner, and Vanessa arrayed herself on one of the sofas, legs hooked over the arm. After a moment's hesitation, I joined her, leaving our captain with a sofa to himself.

"You had some of the good stuff left?" Vanessa looked up, her eyes hooded. "And you didn't tell me?"

Yami made an annoyed noise. "You'd've downed all of it, you wino."

"Of course. Isn't that the point of alcohol?" Vanessa waved an arm.

Yami snorted. "Yeah," he said, downing the contents of Vanessa's bottle before pouring a measure of the amber liquor into each of the three glasses, one for Vanessa, one for him, and one for me.

I sniffed the glass- it smelled like old firewood. Vanessa smiled at hers before she tossed it back. Alcohol was a poison. That was how my father had explained it to me. It was strong enough that it would kill small animals, or the tiny unseen creatures that caused infection, but humans were too big, so it started by killing good judgement and balance. If you drank a large amount you could die, but that was true of lots of things.

The stuff burned as it went down, and I stifled a cough. It certainly tasted like I imagined poison would taste. I scraped my tongue against my teeth, trying to rid myself of the flavour. " _This_ is the good stuff?"

"Mm," said Yami, offering me the bottle. "Have a few more and you won't be able to tell."

"You just want to get the newbie drunk," sniffed Vanessa, as I took the bottle and poured myself a tentative second shot.

"No, I wanna scare her into sobriety," said Yami, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "One look at you oughta do it, I dunno, forever."

"So mean!" Vanessa leaned back dramatically, one hand covering her face. "Kost, tell the captain he's being mean."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. It was the first time Vanessa had spoken to me in weeks, but it sort of burst out of me, the sort of laugh that left me out of breath at the end.

"You're mean," complained Vanessa.

"She is," agreed Yami. "She won all my money in a game of cards, and I'm pretty sure she cheated."

"What?" I burst out. "That's not what happened!"

Yami grinned. "Then how come you've got all my money?"

"Because you were careless and lost it!" I declared, folding my arms. "I simply picked it up afterwards."

Yami laughed. "A likely story."

I bristled. "You're lucky I gave you your clothes back!"

"Oh, leave her alone," said Vanessa, hooking an arm around my shoulders and resting her chin on my shoulder. Her breasts were soft against my back, and her breath reeked of booze. "He's just winding you up, sweetheart."

I felt myself turn an odd shade of pink as I watched Yami drain his glass again, the corners of his eyes crinkled with amusement. I deflated a little. "How can you tell?"

Vanessa grinned, twining her fingers round a loose strand of my hair. "He opens his mouth," she said, slowly. "And words come out."

"Oi." Yami gave Vanessa a dark look. "Quit manhandling her."

"Aw, but she's so cute. If she doesn't like it, she can say so." Vanessa squeezed me, pressing her cheek against mine. I suppressed my instinct- to sprout puncturing spines. "You don't mind this, do you, Kost?" she asked, slipping a hand up my shirt.

I yelped, shoving her off me and stumbling off the sofa. The drinks had affected my balance more than I realised, and I swayed a little on my feet, holding on to the edge of the couch. My heart was hammering in my chest, my mana surging to the surface of my skin. Beside me, my grimoire hung in the air, flipping open. I hadn't even thought about calling it.

Vanessa righted herself with an indignant noise.

"I think," I said, taking time to unjumble the words in my head before I said them. "I need some air. I'll see you tomorrow."

* * *

Even when my magic wasn't fully formed, I still had more than the other children. I remember two of the boys fighting in the square. They had just come into their attributes, and they were flinging rocks at each other.

I had a basket in my hands with our order from the grocers, the contents covered with a blue-and-white chequer cloth.

The first rock hit my shoulder, a glancing blow. They glanced up, and laughed. I clutched the basket to my chest, my feet frozen in place on the cobbles.

_What's the matter?_ They taunted me, throwing more missiles. Nothing that could even break the skin- they were only kids, after all, only a year or two older than I was. They laughed when I flinched, and asked why I didn't fight back. I took a deep breath, and forced myself to keep on walking. I turned away from them, and rock hit the back of my head.

I turned towards them, advancing, and they laughed, imitating my pose.

And then my magic came to the surface, a white-hot fire.

Magic was pain. Magic was the radius and ulna in my left arm twisting like snakes under the surface, emerging from the paper-thin skin of my wrist in a twisting spike. The raw pain of skin tearing, the wet feel of my own blood. Magic was the scream ripped unthinking from my young throat.

And the fear. Not my fear, but the fear of others, their eyes showing too much white as I advanced. My bones showing too much white as I advanced. The boys scrambled backwards.

"Stop." They weren't staring at me, I realised, but at my father behind me. He was in his white coat, emerging from the door of his surgery, crimson grimoire tucked under one arm. "Kost, put your magic away. It's not for that."

The boys scattered, and I struggled to get my magic in check, pulling my arm-bones back in through the hole in my skin. The sensation brought tears to my eyes, but my father just bent to gather the items that had fallen from my basket. A bunch of carrots, a parsnip. "What were you going to do?" he asked. "If you caught them?"

I looked down, shame welling in my chest. "I don't know," I said. I couldn't meet his eyes.

"Were you going to hurt them?" My father picked up the basket.

Slowly, reluctantly, I nodded. My father sighed.

"You already have more mana than most of the adults in this village," he said. "You can't do things like this."

"I didn't think-"

"No. You reacted. You didn't think of the pain you might cause, or the consequences of your actions." It was the first time I'd ever heard my father raise his voice. "I raised you better than this!"

I was indignant, clutching my injured wrist as I pulled myself up to my full, childish height. "They started it!"

My father calmed himself, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "What happened out there was a choice. It was their choice to attack you, yes. But it was also your choice to retaliate. Magic should be used to make people's lives better, not for violence."

* * *

I was angry. Angrier than I knew what to do with, now that no convenient criminals were presenting themselves. After my stunt at the poker game, I didn't even have enough mana for a satisfying display of terrain destruction. I found myself walking Asta's training route without even thinking about it, the moonlight guiding my way. The night air had a welcome briskness to it, cold against my flushed face. I'd nearly lost control. Maybe accepting Yami's invitation to drink had been a bad idea.

There was a movement from behind me, in the canopy. I called my grimoire, covering my forearms in a protective layer of bone.

Someone was following me. Yami? No, I could still feel his presence at the edge of my range, somewhere in the hideout. Someone else- someone powerful. And I didn't have enough mana to cast runes. I turned, squinting up, and took a step backwards, firing a spike of bone up at the canopy. My aim must have been off, because all I hit was tree, dropping a cloud of leaves as my spike passed through to clear air.

It was then that I got a glimpse of pink hair, and lace. The person following me was Vanessa.

"I want to talk to you," she called. She floated easily on her broomstick, leaves brushing her flushed face as she descended. She hadn't even bothered putting on a coat, so she was still in the red underwear she'd worn at the house.

I turned from her. "You had weeks to talk to me, if that's what you wanted," I said. "We live in the same house."

"Wait-" she said, and I felt her magic condense in the air around me. What was her magic anyway? I stepped forward and found myself stopped short. Fine pink threads wound around my wrists and ankles, lifting me from the ground.

I hung there, glaring. "This how you usually talk to people?"

"Hey, you attacked me first." Vanessa pouted.

"You were an unknown mage, following me through the woods at night! What was I meant to do, say hello?"

"I came to apologise!" said Vanessa, exasperated. "Why are you being so difficult?"

"Difficult? You're the one who's been ignoring me! I thought we were going to be friends!" I strained against the threads, but they didn't break.

"I thought we were going to be friends, too!" snapped Vanessa. "I washed your hair! I thought we were going to do pedicures and spa days and shopping! And other! Womanly! Things!" she jabbed her fingernail towards me as punctuation, and we stared at each other. "But nooo-" Vanessa shook her head. "Your first night here, you gotta steal my man."

" _Your_ man?" My eyes widened. "You're saying you and captain Yami are an item?" If that was the case, surely Finral, or especially Gordon, with his encyclopaedic knowledge of the squad members, would have said something to me. Or even Yami himself- he didn't seem the sort of person to keep a secret girlfriend. With a surge of effort, I shaped the bone on my forearms into blades, and twisted them down in an arc, severing my bonds. I shot a spike behind me to propel myself forward, but my balance was off, and I tumbled through a pile of leaves, landing with my back to a tree. As I looked up, my brain registered two things. First, Vanessa was very upset. Second, she liked the captain. The same way I liked the captain. We were in the same boat.

"So you admit it!" Vanessa wobbled on her broom as she followed me.

"He's not your man. He's not anyone's man. I don't know- he's his own man I guess." I lowered my chin to my chest. He wasn't mine, I knew that much.

I expected her to say I was wrong, and shout at me some more, but instead she went very quiet. When I looked up, her face was sad. "So... you didn't sleep with the captain?"

I looked at her, incredulous. "He slept _next to me_."

"Oh. Oh!" Vanessa's lip trembled.

I felt a pang of guilt. Yeah, I hadn't gotten anywhere with Yami yet, but that didn't mean I hadn't thought about it. "It's okay," I said, unconvincingly.

Vanessa covered her mouth with her hand, eyes tearing up slightly. "Oh no. I've been so mean to you! And you didn't even do anything."

"What." I narrowed my eyes at her. "No. Stop. Stop crying."

Vanessa collapsed onto me, arms around my neck. "I've been a bad big sister to you-"

I patted her awkwardly with my bone-plated hands. "Dammit." I shook my head. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't know you liked him too."

Vanessa froze, scrunching her face at me. It wasn't a great place to be, alone in the forest with Vanessa's arms around my neck and nearly no mana. Maybe telling her could have waited until later, but it hadn't felt right, just letting her wallow in self-recrimination like I hadn't basically just cuddled up to the captain back in Kikka.

"You like him," she said, releasing me. "That means we're rivals. _Love_ rivals."

"Does that mean we can't be friends?" I asked.

"I don't know!" wailed Vanessa.

I leaned back against my tree."You're a mess."

"I aaam," she agreed, sorrowfully. But there was a tiny part of me that softened for her.

Saying that, she staggered back, and vomited onto my feet.

I let her lean on my shoulder as we walked back to the hideout, using her broom as a makeshift walking stick. My balance still wasn't great, but it was better than hers, which made sense, as she'd already been drinking when we'd returned from the city. By the time we got back, she was halfway passed out, drooling on my shoulder.

"She found you, then." Yami was out front, smoking again. If he knew what had transpired in the forest, he wasn't showing it.

"Yeah." I hauled Vanessa through the front door. "You know the way to her bedroom?"

Yami shrugged. "Stick her on the couch. She'll find her way."


	9. No-one is Born a Fighter

I had a nightmare that night, among the hulking shapes of the sleeping beasts. It was one I'd had before, a thousand times before. It started with the village on fire, and the smell of charred meat.

I leapt from the wagon that had carried us from Ardua and hit the ground running. I didn't have a plan. I didn't even have a notion of what I wanted to do, but I was running towards the village.

When I remember my hometown, I want to remember it as peaceful. I want to remember it as it was in my childhood, old Garret hauling his cart of turnips, the gang of kids who played in the square around the well.

Instead, I dreamed of the fire. Festive bunting, hung from the eaves of the houses on the main street, burning like hundreds of votary candles. Black smoke from burning thatching. I passed Sen's father cut open like a fish, old Garret decapitated, their blood clotting like tar. My mother in half her best dress, nailed to a post. I saw it like a flip book, the people I grew up with arrayed over the street leading to the square. The square where the church was, the square where my father's surgery was. Bandits, swooping down from above on their brooms, rough hands on me. That's where they caught me. Each time, I'd try a different path, forgetting it was a dream. Each time, I'd try to fight them off, forgetting it was a dream.

The bandits had stacked the people of Barrow in the square, and lit a pyre.

On top of the pyre was my father, tied to another post. I thought at first that he was dead, but his grimoire was open and he was shrouded in magic. The flames licked his flesh, charring and blistering the skin as fast as his blood magic could heal it. His eyes were bloodshot, the whites red rather than white.

"You can't make me like you are. I'm a _healer_." His voice shook as he spoke to the leader of the bandits, a white haired man with a scar over one eye and an open vivid red grimoire. "You can't make me one of you."

"We just want some sport, mister doctor." One of the underlings chucked a bolt of ice, and my father cried out as it pierced his shoulder. "Defend yourself."

I watched as he shook, his white coat dyed red and charred by the flames. But the aura of his magic encompassed him, and only him. I was passed, kicking and spitting, through the laughing crowd, until I landed at the feet of the white-haired fire mage.

"Kost-" My father looked at me through the flames, his expression not of anger, but of grief. He had given up on me. In his mind, I was already dead.

"She's yours, huh, Ivan?" The scar-faced man grinned, dragging me to my feet by my shoulder, his grip like iron. "Come on, then, it's not as if we've bound your magic. Fight back. Save your kid." The men around the fire jeered as their leader threw me to the ground.

"I'm sorry," my father said, blood running from his eyes like tears, and I understood then that there was no-one left in the world that would come for me.

* * *

"Allergies, huh." I woke to a grating noise as Yami shoved open the door of the beast room. It was later than I usually would have woken- much later, judging by the grey light that filtered down into the basement.

"Whu-?" I blinked awake as Yami's pets barged past me to greet him, still halfway stuck in my dream. It'd been a bad one. I rubbed my face with the backs of my hands and they came away wet. Had I been crying? "I don't know," I said. I watched as Yami pulled a chunk of meat from the bucket by his side, and fed it to one of the waiting beasts- the great wolfy one, who wagged his tail. "Where's Asta?" I asked. He was usually the one to feed the beasts, and I'd never seen the captain do it himself. Not that seeing Yami right after waking up wasn't good, but it was unexpected.

"Still out," said Yami, doling out more meat, this time for the flat-faced bear. "No wake-up call for your poor old captain, either," he said, with a look at me. Another of the beasts shoved close to him, and he scratched it behind the ear idly before giving it a shoulder of something from the bucket.

I frowned. Surely he didn't want me taking over that part of Asta's chore list. "What time is it?"

"You missed breakfast," Yami said. "But you should come upstairs anyway. Squad meeting."

Yami entered the common room with his usual kick to the door, and I crept in after him. As always, there were leftovers. I helped myself to a plateful of room-temperature bacon as the other black bulls assembled, Yami yelling at them. Magna held a damp towel to his head, and flinched anytime someone talked above a Gordon-level mumble, though his glasses hid his eyes, which helped somewhat. Finral vanished briefly and returned with Vanessa, who slumped forward onto the table as soon as he put her down, pink hair everywhere. I couldn't see Grey anywhere, but there were two Gauches and they were arguing. Charmy joined me at the leftover pile, fetching herself a large plate of glistening almond croissants seemingly from nowhere. She glanced at my plate with a frown, and carefully placed one of her croissants on top of my bacon. I mouthed a _thank you_ and the squad was assembled.

"Right," said Yami, narrowing his eyes at us. "We got missions."

"Mission _s_?" Noelle seemed surprised by the plural. I rolled my bacon into a cylinder and wedged it into my mouth.

"Uh-huh." Yami nodded. "Word got out about us being the number two squad now, and everyone wants a piece of us." He pulled some paper from his pocket. "It'll die down eventually, but for now we gotta deal with it." He waved his arm vaguely. "Make teams."

We all looked at each other, apart from Charmy, who was busy eating, and Vanessa, who was face down on the table, snoring gently. Yami put a pile of paper on the table- from what I could see, they were mission briefings and maps of dungeon areas.

"Kost, come on our team!" chirped Luck, hanging off Magna's arm. "We can fight!"

I wasn't sure if he was talking about fighting the enemy or fighting with each other, but either way sounded suitably terrifying. I frowned, swallowing down my makeshift breakfast. "Uh-" I said, trying to think of a good way to ask if there would be any bandits to hunt.

Magna squinted at me blearily. "Do we gotta take her? She's so damn freaky."

Luck ignored him cheerfully as he skipped up to me, tugging on the edge of my magic knight cape. "How about it?"

"Forget about it." Yami raised a hand, his voice deadpan. "I'm not putting you two psychopaths in the same team. Unless one of these missions is 'murder everyone'. " He pretended to look over the briefings. "Guess you're outta luck today, Luck."

"But captain!" Luck wiggled, his eyes large, and Yami ignored him. Magna mostly just seemed relieved.

Noelle eyed me suspiciously. "You're putting her in the same camp as Luck?"

"No, I'm putting her in a different camp. What are you, deaf?"

"But she-" Noelle hesitated, swallowing before she spoke. "She hasn't tried to fight anyone since she got here. She's barely used her magic. Captain, I think you're being unfair."

I stared at Noelle, surprised more than anything. She'd seemed so haughty when we'd first met, and she was royalty to boot. Aside from casual conversation at dinner, we'd barely spoken. Why would she waste time paying attention to someone like me? Let alone stand up for me like that? Luck, by comparison, seemed indifferent to being classified as a murderous psychopath.

Yami seemed irritated, his face cast in shadow. "You're doubting my intuition as a captain?"

"I-" I saw Noelle's jaw clench with resolve. "I don't think Kost is a violent person," she said.

Yami went very still. "Okay," he said. He paused a beat, and his gaze flickered over to me. There were creases at the corners of his eyes. Was he trying not to laugh? He breathed in. "You want her on your team, then?"

Noelle raised a clenched fist. "Of course!"

The rest of the squad grouped up, Yami claiming Finral as his ride for a trip to the capital. Gauche refused to partner up with anyone, leaving Gordon partnered up with the other Gauche, who promptly turned herself into a copy of Gordon, much louder than the original. That left me, Noelle, an unconscious Vanessa, and Charmy, who seemed to have no intention of doing anything but second breakfast.

"Gauche, go with Kost and Noelle," ordered Yami at last. "Last time I let you go on a mission alone you fucked off to Nairn for three days to stalk your sister."

* * *

Finral portaled us to the nearest point he knew to the dungeon location- a field in the forsaken region, but once he had gone, the problems with the grouping quickly became obvious.

" _Neither_ of you can ride a broom?" Gauche's rage was nearly palpable, his visible eye bulging slightly. "What is this, a joke to you?"

"In case you'd forgotten, I can't control my magic properly," said Noelle. I could see her anger, but it was slightly less overt than Gauche's, more like an understated seethe than a full-blown boil.

Gauche sniffed, his lips twisting into a haughty sneer. "Fine," he said. "But what's your excuse?" he demanded, jabbing a long, elegant finger at me. If the man didn't spend his entire time either in a childish sulk, or getting a nosebleed over his sister, I thought, he might almost be handsome. Almost.

"My family ran a doctor's surgery," I said. "Brooms can't carry lots of equipment. Or patients." Usually, we used a cart, and if there was a real emergency, my father would fly out ahead, leaving my mother and I to bring the cart behind.

"Your family are doctors?" Noelle asked, looking genuinely interested. "Like Owen?"

I flinched. "They were," I managed.

For once, Gauche looked at me with something other than utter contempt. "That's rough," he said, leaving Noelle to stutter out an apology.

In the end, we walked to the dungeon. Gauche couldn't carry the two of us at once on his broom, particularly not in his favoured pose of standing on the shaft with us clinging to his legs. He claimed that he'd be able to do it if we were two copies of his little sister, but that we were too heavy. Noelle pointed out that his little sister was only ten years old, so of course we were heavier than her.

I found myself enjoying their company. Noelle was prickly, very proper, and made me carry her luggage, but she was the first to suggest a stop when we were flagging, and didn't complain about her own blistered feet. I sensed a lot of mana from her, lurking just below the surface, but she didn't use reinforcement magic or mana skin, even when the wind was bitingly cold. Maybe that was the lack of control that she had mentioned. My own mana reserves were holding up better now that I had the strength to walk without leaning on my reinforcement magic constantly.

Gauche had seemed to soften to me since learning I was an orphan, and he talked to me more than he had when I had been training at the base. Unfortunately, all he wanted to talk about was his younger sister, Marie. Over the course of our journey, I learned Marie's favourite colour, her favourite foods, and even her favourite song.

I tried asking Noelle about her family, but that was a dead end. And considering I didn't want to talk about mine, I couldn't blame her.

* * *

"Oh," sighed Noelle, as we reached the point marked on the map. "You have _got_ to be kidding me."

I put her luggage down my feet, raising a small puff of dust as I did. "What is it?"

The trees thinned out to scrub, and then stopped entirely, leaving the earth, bare and dry. Beyond that, we looked out over the lip of a caldera, a pit that looked at least two miles across. It was like a hole scooped out of the forest, the treeline stopping within twenty feet or so on all sides. It gleamed with mana, so much that it almost hurt to look at, and it was filled with shifting sands that seemed to waver in the sunlight as heat rose from it.

"A high mana region," said Gauche, emerging from the trees behind us on his broomstick. "Looks like it's aligned with the earth, wind, and light attributes. It'll be dangerous to cross."

"The mission briefing didn't mention it," said Noelle, sourly.

Gauche shrugged. "Since when do those give us anything useful?"

I sat down on top of Noelle's luggage. "So where's this dungeon we're looking for?"

"It should be down there," said Noelle, pointing.

I squinted down into the caldera. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but through the shifting patterns of the sand, I could make out the outline of buildings- pointed towers protruding from the dunes like fangs. I could make out something else, too, to our left on the lip of the caldera.

"Hey," I tilted my chin to Gauche and Noelle. "You see those guys?"

They were three figures in blue. I could barely sense them over the background mana, but at least one of them was strong. Rather than fly on brooms, the three of them had somehow sprouted a pair of angelic wings from their backs. Magic knights.

"Blue rose!" Gauche snarled. "They must have heard the reports of a dungeon here too. We might have beaten them to the location, if either of you deadweights could fly a broom."

I bit back a retort. At least Gauche wasn't making comments about my weight anymore. "What do we do?" I asked, watching the blue rose squad as they flew to the dungeon. "I mean, they're on the same side as us, right? It shouldn't matter if they clear the place before us."

"What? Heck no!" This time it was Noelle's turn to explode at me. "You don't know anything about the magic knight squad system, do you?"

I blinked. "They're our mortal enemies and we should kill them on sight?"

Noelle narrowed her eyes at me. "Also no."

"Then I don't see the problem."

"The captain would be disappointed in us," said Gauche. I looked at him carefully. It was the first time he'd seemed to care about anyone's opinion but his sister's.

Noelle nodded, in agreement with Gauche for once. "And we'd never hear the end of it from Asta if we just gave up. Not that I care what he thinks," she added quickly. "But it would be annoying."

I sighed, squinting out over the caldera. Would Yami really care if the blue rose got to the dungeon before us? I tried to imagine him giving us a dressing down, but drew a blank. That wasn't his style. If I was working out and failed a rep, he'd wait for the last possible moment to intervene, until I was practically stuck under the bar. Then, without comment, he might put a finger under the bar, lifting a fraction of the weight off me.

He wouldn't care if we won or not. But he would care if we tried.

"Alright," I said. "Guess we're doing this. Can't Gauche just fly there on his broom?"

"It's a high mana area," Gauche said with a huff. "If you tried to fly a broom into that, you'd fall and die. That's why the other squad was using wing magic."

"I don't suppose either of you can fly?"

Gauche shook his head, summoning a mirror above his hand in reply. He picked a pebble from the ground and tossed it into the air, where a beam of pink light from the mirror hit it and sent it spinning into the air over the caldera, where it exploded. "I can blast something along for a distance," he said, reluctantly. "That's about all Her Royal Highness here can manage, too. Can you fly, bone girl?"

I pursed my lips, frustrated. Things didn't look great for anything hit by Gauche's magic. "I can jump," I said. "I could probably carry one person with me."

"We could leave Noelle here," said Gauche. "With her poor mana control she's a liability in the high mana region."

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here!" snapped Noelle. "And yes, I realise I'm at a disadvantage, but I'm not totally useless."

I'd never seen her in action, so it was hard to weigh in. If Yami was here, he'd probably say something about surpassing limits.

"We shouldn't split up," I said, slowly. "It might be dangerous."

"Then what do you suggest?" snapped Gauche. "We can't fly across."

"No," I frowned, extending my senses. There was background mana, sure, but only as much as most of Argula Forest. "But we could walk."

I hopped down from the edge of the cliff, dropping into a crouch as I hit the sand. The first thing that hit me was the heat. It was like standing on a griddle, the heat spreading up from the soles of my feet, and I pushed my mana to the surface, glowing white as it deflected the damage. The second was the wind, like standing in a whirling mass of abrasive grit, making me spit and forcing me to close my eyes. Even deflecting the haboob with my mana, it was still grating, prickling like pins and needles as it hit the glow of my _mana skin_.

 _Bone Shell._ It was nearly reflexive as I cast it, the plates of bone growing from my neck and back, only narrow slits to see from. It was as if I was standing in an island of my own mana, the bones protecting and containing me.

I turned, looking up at Gauche and Noelle at the edge of the region, and waved.

"That's not bad," called Gauche. "But since neither of us can do that, it's also useless."

Ack. He was right. All the time I'd spent in the forest, I'd never had anyone to protect but me. I didn't know how to extend my bone shell beyond myself. Or even if I _could_.

"Come down," I called. "I'll think of something."

Gauche scowled down at me. "No, thanks."

But Noelle was staring down at me, a strange sort of light in her eyes. She leapt down, her skirts flapping up around her thighs. The effect of the region was as obvious on her as it had been on me, and she staggered as the wind hit her. I grabbed her arm before she fell, shielding her with my body.

"Sea dragon's lair!" she spat, thrusting her wand out in front of her. Her mana swelled from her, swirling round her like a wave of seawater, and swept away the sand in the air around us. The temperature dropped, too- from blistering to only unpleasantly hot.

"Impressive." I looked up at the swirling water around us. It was like sitting at the bottom of a pond and looking up at the sky. "Can you move with that?"

Noelle shook her head, a small tremor in her arm as she worked to maintain her focus. "Not across this sand. The attribute matchup is bad."

The sand flowed around my feet like water. A barrier like Noelle's could contain all of us, but she couldn't move it. Gauche could use his magic to blast something along.

I closed my eyes, visualising the shape I wanted my bone to take. I'd never tried something much larger than my own body before, and the pressure from the natural mana made forming it difficult. I spread my fingers, my mana white-hot through my skin.

A sphere- a shell- a ship. The bone formed a hull around us, cutting into the sand below and taking in the edges of Noelle's barrier. It formed a deck below us, lifting our feet from the sand. Noelle's eyes widened in surprise as I wove my magic through hers.

"Gauche!" I called up to the brooding mage on the caldera's edge.

He shook his head, floating out into the air above us before the mana in the area shorted out his broom. He fell gracefully on to the deck, shaggy hair ruffled and broomstick in hand.

"Can you do your mirror thing?" I asked. "A big one?"

"You want me to blast the ship?" Gauche looked at me like I was stupid.

"No." I focused, forming a hole in the stern of the bone ship- the direction of the canyon's wall. "Hit the ground behind us."

Gauche raised his visible eyebrow, but seemed to understand what I was asking for. His grimoire fluttered open, glowing purple. A full length mirror emerged from its open pages, its back covered in gold decoration- a woman's face in profile. I felt Gauche's mana gather in the surface of the mirror, more focused than Noelle's, as he started his incantation. I grabbed it with my bone magic, attaching it to the ship.

"Large Reflect Ray!"


	10. Brawl Without Rhythm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the lack of Yami this chapter, please assume he's off taking a long shit somewhere.

"Large Reflect Ray!"

The beam was as wide as Gauche was tall, the light an intense white-purple that shot out, faster than my eyes could follow.

I was practically thrown to the floor with the force of the blast. To my left, I could see Noelle clinging to the prow for dear life, and behind me, Gauche clutched the giant mirror he had summoned as we were launched across the sand at incredible speed. The sandstorm whipped past us, making Noelle's barrier roil and foam as it deflected the debris in the storm. My boat was under stress, too, the hull threatening to fracture with the conflicting forces of the blast and the sand against the hull. I fed it mana. As we neared the dungeon entrance, the focus required was overwhelming. I felt like I was the hull of the boat, fracturing at the edges, cracks running through me to my core. My eyes bulged, and I let out a scream as we hurtled into the side of the dungeon, careening into the wall. No brakes.

I felt the impact in my teeth, the prow of the boat smashing into the wall. I clutched at splinters in my mind as the hull split.

There was a ringing in my ears, and I found myself sprawled on the ground, dusty but otherwise uninjured.

I stood, brushing debris from my armour, and surveyed the scene around us. The ship had crashed through the wall of the tower, breaking through the wall before smashing into smithereens. I was shaken, but I was still breathing and I still had mana to spare.

"You guys okay?" I asked.

Noelle pulled herself to her knees, coughing up a little dust. "I'm fine."

Gauche pushed some masonry off himself and gave a wordless thumbs up. I nodded.

"So this is a dungeon, huh."

"Usually there's a concentration of mana at the centre," said Noelle. She paused. "Do you feel it?"

I closed my eyes as I felt for the mana, and Gauche and Noelle's breathing slowed as they did the same. Noelle had more mana than Gauche by a wide margin. The storm outside felt duller now that we were inside, but veins of natural mana flowed through the structure, pulsing in time with the howling wind. The dungeon was deep, the towers extending into the earth like overlapping roots. Below us, three strong mages moved in a spiral- the blue rose squad.

"We need to find a way down," said Gauche, his gaze directed at the door to the room. Its architrave was carved with dozens of symbols, each one emitting a soft glow from within. He tried the handle and gave an annoyed noise when he sound it locked, and started poking the symbols. Noelle followed him, frowning.

"Can your magic tell us how to open the door?" she asked me.

"I don't know," I admitted. I hadn't ever tried to use my divination like that.

Gauche glanced over his shoulder at us, then nodded. "Try it."

_Throw the bones._ I muttered the incantation as quickly as I could, casting my runes onto the dusty room.

One rune, repeated three times. _Below._

I shook my head. "Sorry."

Gauche grunted in irritation and went back to poking the door. "If Marie was here she would have solved this by now."

It didn't seem like I would be much help with the puzzle. I focused, closing the eye holes in my helm to block out the light. The most reinforced area of the room was the door, the dungeon's mana flowing around it and through it in a thousand golden threads. The walls around it were reinforced, too. My boat had burst through the outer wall, but that was with the aid of Gauche's magic. Where wasn't reinforced?

I bent, putting my palm onto the dusty flagstones. I focused my magic into my arm, as much reinforcement magic as my scrawny muscles would bear, making a fist of my gauntleted hand. I drew my fist back, my focus at a single white-hot point. Stray mana leaked between my fingers with an eerie white light, and I struck. There was a satisfying crack, and the floor shook.

Gauche span, looking at me. "What did you do?"

"I think I found us a shortcut," I said, trying to sound confident. The tower shook again, cracks spreading from the hole I'd punched. Debris fell from the ceiling, narrowly missing my head. The building shook again, and I wobbled, grabbing for the edge as the floor collapsed under me.

Gauche stood on his broom and swooped down, catching Noelle by her collar as she fell. She twisted, grabbing Gauche's arm as he hoisted her onto the broom beside him. "You could have given us a warning!"

"I'll-" I gulped, scrabbling for purchase on the sandstone as it crumbled under the claws of my gauntlet. "I'll keep that in mind for next time!" I said, as the final piece of stone gave way under my weight and I fell.

If I hadn't eaten all of that bacon for breakfast, I thought, as I fell into the blackness, my grimoire the only source of light, maybe the masonry would have held. Gauche was diving down after me, but with two people on the broom he didn't have enough maneuverability to catch up with me, not with the floor speeding towards me like it was. I braced, crossing my arms pulling my legs up against my chest, and flaring mana to my armour. I squeezed my eyes shut as the floor sped towards me, filling my vision, and there was a deafening noise. I crashed through it, and then I was falling again.

* * *

I hit something soft. Tentatively, I opened my eyes, looking around. The floor looked to be covered in sand, and my fall had disturbed a cloud of it, which settled around me with a noise like faraway rain. I was curled in a ball in a small crater. Gauche drifted lazily down from my path of destruction, Noelle clinging white-faced to his shoulder.

"Was that something you intended to do?" asked Gauche as he steered the broom downwards. "Or just reckless idiocy?"

I hedged my bets. "Yes."

Noelle knotted her brows, and I could practically see her reassessing her opinion of me, down from _quiet new girl_ to _smashes buildings sometimes_. I hung my head.

In any case, we were close to the centre of the dungeon now. The chamber was huge, and circular. Pillars lined the walls, emerging from a floor of softly glowing golden sand, and the roof I had burst through was a graceful arch carved from sandstone, crystallised mana flowing through it like veins. A door stood at either end of the chamber, one huge and heavy with runes and mana reinforcements, and the other-

"Black Bulls!" The trio of blue rose knights entered through the stone arch at the opposite end of the chamber. Their leader was a heavyset blonde woman with buns in her hair, two other women behind her. One wore her light brown hair in pigtails, though shorter than Noelle's, and the other had black hair, tied back in a bun. From the colours of their grimoires, they had water and ice affinities. "Stand aside! This is our claim!"

"You think? It looks like we got here first," said Gauche, his face cast in shadow. "Go home."

"It looks as if the trove hasn't yet been raided." said the dark-haired blue rose knight. "The door is still sealed."

"We arrived at the dungeon before your party. This is underhanded play," said the wing mage- their leader.

"We didn't cheat!" Noelle objected. "We were just faster than you."

"The same sort of underhanded tactic that got your uncouth squad the number two spot no doubt," said the heavyset wing mage.

"A shame," said the dark haired knight behind her. "For all that cheating, they couldn't even get first place. I guess they really are the worst magic knight squad."

The atmosphere of the room changed in an instant. It had been tense a moment before, but now both Gauche and Noelle were looking at the blue rose knights with hate in their eyes.

"Die." Gauche turned his hand palm up, and a small mirror floated above it as he cast his signature _reflect refrain_.

The blue rose trio was quick off the mark, though, the black-haired mage raising a wall of ice to block the ray, and I was acutely aware of how unprepared I was for a fight like this. I was no stranger to fights against large groups, but having others on my side, and being aware of their mana and attack patterns, was entirely new to me. I took in the battlefield, looking for a path where I wouldn't be blocking Gauche's line of attack.

"Reckless," the heavyset mage commented, her back glowing white as wings sprouted from it. "As expected from a man."

"Then how about from a woman?" Noelle yelled, thrusting her wand forward as she cast. _Sea dragon's roar_ was magnificent, the head of an enormous dragon formed from seawater, and smashing forwards with an immense force. The wing mage and the dark haired knight scattered to avoid it, but it hit the brunette head-on, and I sensed her attempt to nullify it with her own water magic before it smashed her into the wall behind. The dungeon itself seemed to shake in response, dust falling from the vaulted ceiling of the chamber.

"Did you have to start a fight?" Noelle demanded, as she raised a water barrier between us and the blue rose pair, blocking a barrage of ice.

Gauche sniffed as he fired a ray towards the leader, who flitted easily to one side, returning the attack with a cloud of feathers, and scowled at Noelle. "Don't pretend you weren't going to."

The thousands of feathers hit the barrier, and the water became turbulent as Noelle's control started to falter. Gauche and Noelle were both battered from our brief flight across the canyon, but the remaining two blue rose knights still looked pristine. We needed to finish this before our mana ran out, and that meant I had to do something more than sit back and observe.

I launched myself forwards, into the second ice barrage. I hit it at an angle, firing a bone spike into it to propel myself to the side. I bounced from a sandstone pillar, cracking it under my feet, and neatly into melee range of the blue rose knights. Their leader yelled, filling the air arround me with razor-edged feathers, and I barrelled through, taking the hits on my armoured head and arms. The ice mage dodged, flying just out of my grasp, but the wing mage was too slow. I slammed my forehead into hers, and there were stars in her eyes as she fell backwards into the sand, her glowing wings dissolving into mana.

"It's three-on-one now," I called to the dark haired ice mage as I landed, knees bent, and the ground shook again, seemingly of its own accord. "You should give up."

"Why would I do that?" The ice mage landed on the sand a short distance from me, the white wings on her back fading. She raised her hand palm forward, blocking one of Gauche's attacks with a wall of ice. "You're the ones at a disadvantage, black bulls."

I swore under my breath. She was right. Behind me, Noelle was on her knees, exhausted, and judging by his mana Gauche wasn't much better off. There were fractures in the surface of my bone armour. The room shook again, and more dust fell from the ceiling. I glanced up, frowning. What was up with this dungeon?

"Kost!" Noelle called. "Look out!"

The sand trembled, rippling outwards as something breached the surface. It was so large that I thought at first it must be a part of the dungeon, the tip of an animated tower, but its appearance was organic, the head of a wurm ten feet across and covered in overlapping bone plates. More of the wurm followed, sending a wave of sand outwards as it bellowed at the ceiling. I skidded backwards, rejoining Noelle and Gauche. "What _is_ that thing?"

Gauche glared at the monster. "It's dead is what it is."

The wurm turned its eyeless maw towards the unconscious wing mage.

"Puli!" the blue rose ice mage called, rushing forwards on a horizontal avalanche to rescue her squadmate.

A barrage of Gauche's attacks hit the creature's side, mirrors reflecting beams of pink light that hit with palpable force, the monster now more of an enemy than our fellow clover kingdom knights. If his intention was to destroy it, he had failed, but the wurm turned its head towards us, showing us the thousands of teeth that lined the inside. The room shook again, a chunk of masonry falling from the roof. It looked like the whole place was collapsing.

"Get the others to safety!" I called. "I'll distract it!" Exactly how I was going to distract a creature that big was a question I hadn't answered, but I was sure I'd think of something. My vision filled with the darkness of its maw, and I was dimly aware of Gauche and Noelle speeding towards the unconscious water mage on Gauche's broom as the wurm closed on me, mouth wider than I was tall. My heart hammered in my chest, and I reminded myself that I wasn't afraid of death. Fear was a luxury.

I leapt at the last moment, tucking and rolling midair to land on the creature's head, just behind the mouth. _Bone blade_ sprouted from my gauntlet, and I stabbed between the bone plates. It screamed, bringing more stone down from the ceiling as it twisted under me, shooting forward. The room was collapsing. Stones hit my shoulders, my back, and my head. I reached for my mana to reinforce my armour, and was shocked by how little remained. Had I really been fighting that hard?

Another chunk of masonry hit me, and my footing slipped, the armour on my leg cracking. The wurm twisted and I fell, tumbling into the sand with a thud. I struggled to my feet. I couldn't see the wurm. Where had it gone?

"Kost!" Gauche yelled out my name as the wurm's mouth opened in the sand below me, and my mind went back to the runes I had cast at the entrance. _Below_.

* * *

It was dark, terribly dark, and the slick insides of the creature pressed in with a crushing force. I gasped for air, thrashing my limbs, and felt the edges of my vision darken as I began to black out.

My eyes flickered closed, and I saw Barrow again, the same way I always saw it, burning thatch against the smoky evening sky. My mother with the nail through her bare neck. My father's face, full of a pathetic kind of sorrow.

My father's hands.

They'd been elegant- not like the hands of the farmhands and carpenters and other workers who lived around us. Every other man I saw had thick callusses or missing fingertips, and the women in the village would remark on his hands- that they were soft from lack of work. A noble's hands. Useless.

I watched him stitch up an incision on a man's stomach, where he'd cut a growth away, the skin wet with disinfectant, and puckering where he pulled the thread tight. It was delicate work, and his hands didn't seem soft and useless then, but tools, keyed not to the hard, rough labour that our neighbours built their lives upon, but to the manipulation of skin, and flesh.

"Why can't you just use your magic to heal him all the way?" I asked.

He smiled at me as he tied off the thread. From my mother, an impudent question like that might have bought me a scolding, but my father never raised his voice at me.

"Farmer Garret has plant magic," he said, as he took a swab from the side, and dipped it in disinfectant. "Why doesn't he just use that to grow all his crops?"

I thought about it for a moment. I'd seen Garret's plant magic. Even using all his mana, he couldn't control more than two stems at a time. A field would be out of the question. "He's not powerful enough," I said.

"What if he was?" my father insisted. "What if he was the nation's greatest plant mage?"

"But he's not."

"Hypothetically," said my father, the lines around his eyes creasing. "Humour me, kiddo."

"Then he'd be a noble," I said with a shrug. "He'd live in the town on top of a pile of money. He wouldn't want to live in Barrow at all."

I looked at my father expectantly. He did this sort of thing a lot-take my questions and turn them into a riddle for me instead. Sometimes, when I got the right answer, he would laugh and give me one of the candies he kept in his pocket for difficult patients. If I got the wrong answer, or if I gave one that was too simplistic, he would launch into a lecture about the topic. This time, he did neither, just swabbed the wound and gestured for me to hand him the bandages. I did, and his scarlet grimoire floated beside him as he placed a hand on the sleeping man's chest, raising him up a few inches with his blood magic so that he could wind the bandage round the man's torso. He sometimes did that when he had healed someone- the presence of his mana in the blood allowed him to manipulate the body. "He could grow plants for a season," I allowed. Hypothetical Garret might need money for travel, and he'd want to sell the farm to someone else. "But then he'd definitely go."

When my father looked over at me again, his brow was furrowed and his blue eyes looked tired. "And when he's gone?" he asked.

"Doctor!" I looked up to see Sen's younger brother at the doorway. "Doctor, come quickly, there's a man, he's hurt-"

My father's jaw hardened as he looked between his patient and the boy. "I need to finish here. Kost, take the emergency kit. I'll be with you as soon as I can."

I nodded, grabbing the brown leather bag by the door. It had bandages, scissors, disinfectant, and other essential medical equipment.

I followed the boy out towards the edge of the village, where a small crowd had gathered.

"Some space, please," I said, imitating the voice I had heard my father use a thousand times. The villagers heard me, and for a moment I ceased to be the strange little girl, and was simply the doctor to them, brown leather case in my hands.

The patient was a stranger, a man I had never seen before. I knelt by his side on the grass, using my senses to examine him. He was bloodied, badly, his clothes soaked with it, but the grimoire in the holster on his hip seemed to be intact, which meant he was alive. For now. His mana was ebbing, but there. He also looked to have been burned somehow, the skin of his face blackened underneath the blood, but I could only treat one thing at a time.

"Can you hear me?" I asked, checking over his torso for the source of the bleeding. It was a slow bleed, a deep red, but I had no way of telling how much blood he had lost already. I was surprised when he gave a nod.

"I can hear you," he croaked, his voice barely above a whisper. I found what I thought was the biggest source of the bleed, where the dark red blood was pooling in a faint rhythm, and grabbed a cloth from the bag to staunch it.

"And when he's gone?" My father's question came back to me as I remembered trying to stem the flow of blood, it soaking through the fabric and onto my hands. Those few seconds were pure panic, struggling to hold back death long enough to see the telltale scarlet light of my father's magic. I knew the answer- my father had told me as we'd lifted the patient into the cart to take back to the surgery. _Everybody has to make do with what's left behind_.

* * *

The dark. I had only the dark. And the dark was suffocating me, a pain behind my eyes and in my chest. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see. I reached out with my senses instead. For mana. For my attribute. _Bone._ My grimoire glowed.

There was bone all around me. Bone in the spine, bone in the ribs like a snake, bone in the tough exoskeleton that protected the creature from the sand. I lashed out again, not randomly, but this time to the spine. A scrap of mana. A single branching bone needle, like the root of a tree. That was all I needed. My claws fastened round the vertebrae, and I threaded my mana through it. Like my father had, when he was healing with his magic, except that I wasn't healing anyone. I simply moved its bones as if they were part of my magic, like some kind of huge, intricate puppet. It twitched and twisted, fighting my control, but it was mine.

The wurm roared as I forced it to the surface, and I could breathe again.

"Kost?" Gauche's face floated disconcertingly close to mine in the darkness, and it took me a moment to register that it was projected on one of his mirrors.

"Gauche!?"

"Oh. You're alive. Good." Gauche's voice was monotone. "Next I was going to call Marie to tell her that we are about to die." There was a tremor in the background, and I heard it twice, once through Gauche's mirror link, and once through the bones of the wurm. "The dungeon is about to collapse on top of us, and you knocked out the one person who could fly through the high mana region. Do you know recovery magic?"

"Not really," I admitted. The only person I'd ever healed was myself.

"Okay, I'm going to talk to Marie now," said Gauche, moving to dismiss the mirror.

"Wait, is that _Kost_?" Noelle's head popped up in the background, her fingers fastening around the edge of Gauche's mirror. "Where are you?"

I grimaced. "I'm still inside the wurm. But I'm..." I swallowed. "I'm controlling it. Can probably carry everyone out before I run out of mana."


	11. Bad Influence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long chapter. I'm sorry.

After I carried everyone to the edge of the caldera on the back of the wurm, I returned a second time to collect the contents of the treasure trove in the wurm's gullet. The blue rose trio, while not terribly happy about the situation, were at least gracious about being rescued, and were careful to not insult the black bulls in front of us again.

When we got back, Yami was on his usual spot on the couch, smoking and reading a newspaper. He sent us out again, on a mission patrolling the southern border. After that, we hunted bandits in a ravine near Rayaka, and then we retrieved a second trove of magic items from an enchanted lake. Each time Charmy was there with a buffet to allow us to replenish our mana, and Yami was around to hand us the next mission. A couple times we passed Magna and Luck in the hallway, looking some combination of burnt and singed. We weren't doing much better- all three of us were tired, and I was covered in pondweed from the enchanted lake.

Yami was sat out on the back porch when we returned, this time polishing his katana, a cigarette in his mouth. He looked like he'd just recently got back from a mission himself, his shirt dirty and his hair more untidy than usual. "Back so soon, eh?" He looked up from the sword as he wiped down the back of the blade with a cloth, taking in our appearances. "Okay, report."

Gauche stepped forward, his tone deadpan. "We retrieved the items. Kost fell in the lake and Noelle had to fish her out because she can't swim."

"Hey!" I made a face. "I was going to get myself out."

"You just sank straight down!" objected Noelle.

"I could've walked to the shore from the bottom."

Noelle gave a skeptical harrumph.

"Sounds about right," said Yami. "Go pick another mission from the pile on the table."

Gauche looked distressed. "My designated day with Marie is tomorrow."

"Then you'd better be finished by then," said Yami, pausing to inhale smoke.

The three of us looked at each other, and Gauche and Noelle turned to go. I moved to follow them.

"Nah." Yami gestured to me with his cigarette hand. "You look like shit, Kost. Come to the capital with me instead."

I stared after the hunched shoulders of Gauche and Noelle as they disappeared inside. "Won't they want my help?" I asked, feeling more than a little useless.

Yami raised an eyebrow at me. "They'll be fine," he said. "Luck already took all the exciting missions. Besides, the wizard king wants to see you."

"The _wizard king_ wants to see me?" I repeated. "Why?"

Yami shrugged eloquently. "Beats me. He said he wanted to see at least one of my backdoor recruits, and, well, you're here and the other guy isn't."

"The other guy?"

"I run a proactive recruitment campaign," said Yami. "He'll turn up eventually, don't worry."

* * *

In the baths I scrubbed myself clean of the slime from the lake, picking the plants out of my hair, and changed into my second set of clothes, the too-short tunic with the large sauce stain across the chest. Could I really meet the wizard king looking like this? I surveyed myself in the mirror, wrapping my magic knight cape around my shoulders. My body looked stronger than it had the night Yami had carried me here, the shadow of abs under the skin of my stomach, but I still looked like someone who'd been dragged here from the forest, and not like a magic knight at all.

I didn't even own shoes. But I did have money. I needed to go shopping.

My first thought was to look for Gordon, but he was away on a mission with Grey, no sign of him in his usual corner save for a pincushion from his sewing kit. With no chance of Gordon's return before Yami dragged me off to the capital in the afternoon, I turned to my second choice.

"Finral!" I pushed open the door to the spatial mage's room. Inside it was overcrowded, filled with furniture that was clearly intended for a much larger room. At one end of the room was a dresser a large mirror, which clearly doubled as a writing desk, judging by the papers and bottles of ink scattered over it, and much of the rest of the space was filled by his bed, a four-poster oak monstrosity with a floral canopy. I couldn't see how it could have possibly gotten through the door, but then again, Finral was a spatial mage. He probably had ways.

"Kost!" The spatial mage was sat on his enormous bed, a book propped up on his knees. He looked up, startled, and slammed the book shut. "How did you know where my room was?"

I shrugged, holding up a handful of runestones. "Sorry," I offered.

Finral looked pained. "I could have been doing anything in here!"

"But you weren't." I pulled a face. Maybe I should have knocked. "I need a favour."

Finral narrowed his eyes at me. "What _kind_ of favour?"

"I need a ride to town and back."

Finral's shoulders slumped, and I knew I'd asked for the wrong thing. "I'm not a taxi."

"You are. That's literally your job description."

Finral sighed, flopping backwards onto his bed. "I'm not your _personal_ taxi, though."

"C'mon," I pressed. "I'm going to see the wizard king. I can't turn up like this."

"This is the first time Yami's given me a break all week," said Finral. "Ask Vanessa. She's not doing anything today."

"Vanessa hates me."

"I don't hate you," said Vanessa, from behind me.

I turned, my eyes widening. Vanessa leaned against the wall, arms folded, but for once she wasn't flushed with inebriation or swaying on her feet. The door to her room was opposite Finral's, and I caught a glimpse of red and pink within.

"And," she continued. "Quite frankly, I'm insulted that you invited Finral shopping before you invited me."

Leaving a relieved Finral behind, we headed to Kikka on broomstick, my arms wrapped around Vanessa's waist. Thankfully, she was wearing more than her usual bra and panty set- a short dress with thigh-high boots and a deep decolletage. She'd also bought her cat with her for some reason, and it sat on the front of the broom, ears flapping in the wind.

"Why are you helping me?" I asked, as the landscape swept by beneath us. Autumn had given way to winter, and many of the fields below were covered in a fine frost, making them appear white. "I thought we were rivals."

"There's nothing that says we can't be friends too." She turned to face me, her smile knowing. "And I'm just so far ahead of you in the woman department, there's really no comparison-" she gestured vaguely to my chest, and her cat gave a meow of agreement. "Besides, those clothes were going to disintegrate sooner or later, and then _I'd_ be the bad guy."

I wasn't sure whether to be insulted or not. After all, she wasn't wrong.

* * *

"Skulls?" Vanessa frowned. "You really want the tunic with the skulls?" She held up the outfit she had picked out for me, an A-line dress with a ruched bodice.

"It goes with my grimoire," I said, simply.

I was starting to regret asking Vanessa to help pick things. I wished Gordon had been in the base- at least he wouldn't have questioned my desire for skull-shaped buttons.

We were carrying something like a dozen boxes of clothes, many of them skull-themed, by the time we reached the place that Vanessa announced would be our final stop. It was the lingerie store I had seen on my first visit to the city.

"Do we really need to go in here?" I asked, doubtful, as I stared at the merchandise displayed in the window- white lace and silk laid across dark pillows as if they were jewellery. "I'm sure some of the other shops sell underclothes." I expected someone like Magna or Finral would catch on fire the moment they stepped into a place like this.

Vanessa puffed her cheeks at me. "There is a world of difference," she said, taking my arm and pulling me to the door. "Between _underclothes_ and _lingerie_."

She pushed the door open and we stepped inside, Vanessa's cat trailing in after us. The light level was low, and there were mannequins against the walls, their wooden bodies carved into headless women and dressed in lace basques and stockings. I knew I should be admiring the pretty lace, but all I could think about was Barrow. My mother in half her best dress, nailed to a post. The other women. I stopped, running my fingers over the grain of the wood at the stump of the neck.

"Underclothes," said Vanessa, "Are what old people wear in the winter. They are string vests and thermal socks. Lingerie is about beauty and desire." She browsed the shelves, picking out a few items. "And being desirable. That's what you want, right, Kost?" She paused, looking over at me. "Kost?"

"Mm?" I looked up to find her hand on mine, lifting it from the dummy. Her cat was sat on top of the mannequin, where the head should be, looking at me intently.

"Let's go try things on," Vanessa said, still holding my hand.

She exchanged a few words with the attendant before she pulled me into the fitting room, a heavy pink curtain blocking off the view from the rest of the shop. There was a small velvet sofa inside, and Vanessa sat me down on it.

"I have some brandy in here if you need it," she said, pulling a hip flask from her boot and wagging it at me. "Or I can make the shop assistants bring us some tea."

I shook my head. "I'll be fine."

Vanessa looked at me like she didn't believe me. "Alright." She pursed her lips. "But if you change your mind, do it quickly, because I'm about to drink this."

She tried on the things she had picked out for herself first while I sat on the sofa, wondering what had just happened between us. I'd been there, back in my hometown, staring at the faces of the dead, and she had known somehow, and pulled me out of it. Her cat, which had followed us into the dressing room, rubbed against my legs, purring, and I reached down to scratch it behind the ears.

"What do you think?" Vanessa finished lacing up the last of her picks, a longline basque with lace panels on the sides, and posed for me.

"Mm?" I frowned. "I don't think that's very practical."

"It's not about practicality. It's about beauty. Elegance. Grace." She swept her arms in the air.

"It's none of those things either."

"Fufu, so _blunt_." Vanessa pressed her face into her hand. "Girls are meant to pay each other compliments, you know."

"But if I said it was nice, you might buy it, and then go around looking like a squashed vase," I said. "That's just worse for everybody all round."

Vanessa sniffed, a purple glow around her as she undid the lacing on the corset with her magic. "You should try some of the things I picked for you."

I bent, poking nervously at the pile, but grateful that Vanessa hadn't left me to my own devices in the shop. There was a lot of lace there, and I picked an item at random, a cream chemise with embroidery around the bust. I undressed and slipped it on, looking at my reflection in the mirror. The fabric was thin, but not lewdly transparent as some of Vanessa's had been, and it clung to my skin, accentuating my waist. Vanessa stood behind me, rubbing a corner of the fabric between her fingers.

"It looks nice. I thought the cream would suit you."

I cocked my head. "Do you mean that, or are you just paying me a compliment?"

"I think you look pretty," she said. "But it's not exactly sexy, you know?"

I saw myself turning pink. "Why would I care if it was sexy?"

"I mean, that's your aim, isn't it?" Vanessa asked, looping an arm round my shoulders. "For a guy to like you?"

I flushed a deeper red, clenching my jaw as I stared at us in the fitting room mirror. I wanted more than just a guy. I wanted our captain. And she knew that.

* * *

When we got back to the hideout, I changed into some of the new clothes I had bought and had lunch from the buffet that Charmy had put on- a heaping bowl of rice fried with shrimp and fish. It was spicy, but my years in the forest had inured me to most pain, and I finished the meal despite the tears in my eyes. After that, it was time to go, and I met Finral and the captain in the common room. Neither of them had dressed up to meet the wizard king.

Yami glanced down at me, surprised. "You're wearing clothes."

I felt a blush creep from my neck to my cheeks. I honestly hadn't expected him to notice my new outfit. I didn't meet his eye. "What about it?"

"Nothin'." He shrugged. "I just thought maybe all that time in the forest had made you regress to some sorta animalistic state, and you were gonna keep wearing those rags until they fell off you."

I narrowed my eyes at him, but he was grinning.

"Just so you know, the black bulls is a pants-optional magic knight squad," continued Yami. Finral's expression could only be described as distressed as he opened the portal to the city.

* * *

The portal to the capital was just as jarring as the portal to Kikka had been- one moment we were in the relative warmth of the hideout common room, and the next we were out in the street, facing a huge portcullis-style door, flanked by two guards in magic knight robes.

I shivered, despite the warmth of my new tunic. "Couldn't you portal us somewhere indoors?"

Finral shook his head. "They keep a spatial barrier around the magic knight headquarters. Otherwise just anyone could 'port in." He glanced at the door in front of us, and then at Yami. "Permission to slack off, sir?"

Yami grunted. "Go for it."

Yami seemed to know his way through the castle, and the various guards let him pass.

When we got to the meeting room, most of the seats at the long table were already occupied. The first thing that struck me was the sheer amount of mana in the room. Each of the mages was strong enough individually that it was hard to tell their mana apart when they were sat at the same table.

To the left, a young man with thick brown hair and a pale gold cape lounged back in his chair, expression laconic. A blue-eyed woman in full armour and a blue cape that matched those of the blue rose sat upright and stern in the seat one over from his, an attendant behind her, as a thin man in a green cape and tight pants leaned over to talk to her. On the other side of the table was perhaps the most beautiful man I had ever seen, with hair like spun gold and a deep pink robe, sitting next to a young boy dressed in pale blue. A broad man in a purple robe sat in the seat nearest the door, stroking his moustache.

At the head of the table was a blond man in a fur robe, leaning on the table with one elbow. His face lit up when we came in. "Yami!"

I stared for a moment at his smile. It was a perfect expression of happiness, as if motes of sunshine formed around the man.

"Yo, Julius." Yami raised a hand. "This is Kost, the one I told you about," he added, gesturing to me with his thumb.

"The bone mage-" Julius' eyes shone, but then he seemed to remember where he was, and he smoothed down his robe with a hand, motes of light dissipating. Was that simply a symptom of the concentration of mana around him? "Perhaps we could trouble you for a demonstration? After the meeting, of course."

The man in the pale gold cape looked up, his face curious. "Which house are you from?"

I blinked, confused. "House?"

"Don't tell me you dug up another obscenely gifted commoner." The gold-caped young man looked over at Yami, his blue eyes flicking over me. "Ugh, where are you even getting them from? You find an orphanage full of Kira by-blows or something?"

I bristled, but Yami seemed to sense my intent, and caught my eye with a warning look. "I found her in Argula woods," he said. "She was turning a guy inside out."

Was that pride in his voice? I frowned. "Technically I was puncturing a man's heart with his own ribcage."

"Sounds about right." Yami gave a broad grin. "You fancy a demonstration, spaceboy?"

There was a moment of quiet in the room. The man in the green cloak pressed his hand to his own chest, giving me a look as if he were thunderstruck. I hadn't noticed when he'd walked in, but he had a scar on the left side of his face, running from his brow to his jaw. "Exciting," he said, softly. The beautiful man pulled a face.

"Jack." The blue-eyed asshole made a sympathetic face to the scarred man. "I'm so glad to see you so moved by someone of your own... level."

"Keh." Scar-faced Jack rolled his eyes. "You wouldn't know a good woman if she bit you in the ass, Langris."

Yami seemed about to say something, and the blue-eyed man seemed about to give a snide retort, but Julius cleared his throat from the head of the table. "If you could control yourselves, captain, vice-captain," he said mildly. "We're just waiting on Nozel, now."

"What, no beast woman today?" Yami took a seat at the table between the snide man and the woman in the helmet. Both of them seemed offended by this, but said nothing.

"Mereoleona and her vice captain are on a mission at my request," said Julius.

"That's a no, then," said Yami, the legs of his chair squealing as they scraped against the floor.

It seemed like the chairs were reserved for important people like captains, so I stood behind Yami. The blue rose woman's attendant, another female magic knight, gave me a silent smile and wave as the final captain entered the room. He was tall, with pale silver hair tied in a braid at his forehead. He looked a lot like Noelle, and even carried himself in the same way, with a kind of flowing haughtiness. Were they related? Noelle had been reluctant to talk about her family, and if her relative was the captain of a rival squad, that might explain it. Had they fallen out somehow?

The man, presumably Nozel, inclined his head towards Julius and the rest of the table before he took the final seat. "I apologise for my late arrival," he said.

Yami narrowed his eyes. "Vangeance and sleepy-head are too good for this gathering, eh?"

"I allowed them to send their vice-captains in their place," said Julius. "The search for the eye of the midnight sun takes precedence, after all."

The eye of the midnight sun? Asta had talked about the group quite a bit when he'd been training me, but I had thought of them as more of a sort of cult, a group of really powerful bandits, not a national threat. The reaction of the captains around the table to the name told me that I was mistaken. I couldn't see Yami's face, standing behind him, but the muscles in his back tensed up. The blue rose captain shifted in her armour, Jack made a soft hiss through his teeth, the white-haired boy looked sad, and Nozel curled his lip.

"It's been over a month," Nozel snarled. From where I was standing, I could see dark shadows under his eyes. "We've not located them with the resources you've allocated. Untie our hands and let us leverage all of our manpower in the search."

Julius' expression was implacable in the face of Nozel's fury. "Our best diviners and mind mages are already working on this."

"And they have _failed_." Nozel's voice shook, and he got to his feet, staring down at Julius across the table. "The eye is a threat to our kingdom, and you seem content to sit by and what? Wait for them to act?"

"There are a hundred threats to our kingdom." Julius' voice was level, almost gentle. "I cannot in good conscience leave our borders unguarded-"

"Don't." Nozel slammed his hand down on the table, his purple eyes blazing. "Don't give me that excuse."

"-to fight a threat on which we have insufficient intelligence." Julius finished. He held up a hand. "You're frustrated. I understand that. There have been deaths, and the death of even one knight is too many. But the eye of the midnight sun has not acted since we began our search. The very act of searching may have pushed them further into hiding."

Nozel stared at Julius, nostrils flared. "You're really going to defend your inaction?"

"I do what I judge to be the right thing," said Julius, unsmiling. "And you seem distraught, Captain Silva. Maybe your time would be better spent getting some rest."

"Anything would be more productive than this," pronounced Nozel, as he turned away from the table.

"Shit," said Yami, as the door slammed behind Nozel. "Someone's really gunning for worst captain this year." He leaned back, grinning over at Jack. "You better watch out, string bean."

"Keh. Says the man who was dead last seven years in a row." Jack rolled his eyes.

The rest of the meeting was less interesting, with Julius going over various intelligence reports, joint missions and patrol patterns. Yami and Jack kept up a constant stream of vaguely threatening banter as the blue rose captain, sitting between them, got more and more annoyed with both of them. Finally, Julius adjourned the meeting, and everyone stood to go.

"Now," said the wizard king, with a smile just for me. "I believe you were going to let me see your magic."

"I wouldn't bother if I were you," said Langris with a slight grin. "She's just a commoner."

"That's bold of you to say." The beautiful man in the pink cloak tittered into his hand. "I seem to recall that the Golden Dawn has its own unbeautiful commoner. A rising star, in fact."

These people were awful. No wonder Finral had wanted to wait out the meeting in the city.

Yami lit a cigarette, still sat at the table. "I think the best demonstration of Kost's powers would be some kind of duel," he said, pausing to take a drag. "What about it, peacock boy?"

"I respectfully decline." The peacock's vice captain brushed his golden fringe from his forehead. "I have more beautiful things to do than brawl with commoners."

* * *

"Let me cut her? Please? Just a little slice, old man?" Jack manifested a blade on each arm hopefully as he sloped after our small group. Julius had requested that we not fight in the war room.

Yami positioned himself between me and Captain Jack, glowering. "Like hell you can. Get your own damn murder hermit."

"But Julius asked for a demonstration," whined Jack. "You can't just have her show off her magic with no-one to fight against."

"I could have Marx call someone," suggested Julius, cheerfully. "I think the youngest Vermillion is in the city today- that might be an interesting match."

"Nah," Yami shook his head. "I'll do it."

I stopped in my tracks. My last fight with Yami had been a summary dispatch. "Won't that be a little one-sided?"

"I won't go all out," said Yami, scratching his chin. "That seems fair, right? Unless-" he raised his eyebrows. "You're afraid of little old me."

I looked up at all six feet of _little old Yami_. He'd flared his mana purposefully, and I could feel the pressure coming off him as he distorted the mana in the air around him with his power. The words he had spoken to me when he recruited me came to mind- _You've had plenty of chances to kill me, and you haven't taken any of them yet._ The same applied the other way round. I nodded, slowly. "Alright. You're my captain. I trust you."

A smile played around his cigarette, and he tapped the top of my head. "Let's go."

We faced each other across the arena, his hand on his katana and our grimoires open. My heart beat steadily as I forced my breathing into a sensible rhythm, and grew a bone quarterstaff from my hands. Jack and the wizard king watching was a distraction, and one I should put out of my mind. Yami was my focus. Last time we had fought, he hadn't used his magic either, not really, except when he'd restrained me. His movements had been godly fast, his reactions seeming to start before I had even acted. If I couldn't overcome that aspect of his fighting style, I didn't stand a chance, magic or no magic.

_Throw the bones._ I murmured the incantation as I tossed the runes onto the arena sand.

Yami had seen my fight with Luck. He wouldn't make the mistake of letting me chain my divination spell. He closed the distance between us faster than I thought possible, katana flashing from its sheath before my runes had even hit the floor.

I moved on instinct, my body in the space where his sword wasn't, and heard Jack whoop from the sidelines as the blade grazed me. I gritted my teeth, bringing my staff up to counter the blow, but Yami changed direction mid-swing, his weight shifting onto his back foot, forcing me to pull my attack to avoid him. We traded blows a few more times, striking empty air as we tested each other.

"Come on." Yami grinned at me, his steps slowing as he made a little distance between us. "You've got more than that."

"Less flirting, more cutting!" called Jack from the sidelines, and then I fought in earnest again.

Yami moved before I moved, sometimes before I'd even thought about moving. I jumped back, skidding on the sand as I moved beyond his reach.

How was he doing it? Was he reading my face? With an incanation of _bone shell_ , I called my magic to cover my head in a bull-skull helm, horns coiling from the sides, and everything went dark.

I couldn't see, but that wasn't much of a barrier, not with how much reinforcement magic Yami was using. My memory told me the limits of the arena, the extent of the sand and the stonework above, and I could sense the mana in the building now, reinforcement intended to facilitate fights like this.

Yami stomped his foot, cracking the earth, and sending stones into the air. The, with a careless flick of his blade, the edge sheathed in darkness, he sent them flying at me. The projectiles themselves contained no mana, so the only indication I had of them was their impact on the surface of his blade as he hit them. I flared my mana, completing my _bone shell_ , and accepted the hits instead, each of them hitting my armour with a crack that shook me to the teeth. I funnelled my mana to the damaged points, renewing the bone as fast as the stones chipped it, and was rewarded with a soft _ooh_ of appreciation from Julius as I charged forward through the darkness.

To my disappointment, Yami was still predicting my moves, even though my face was covered. Did he have some divination technique of his own, like my _throw the bones_? I shifted my weapon, my _bone blade_ morphing from staff to sword to scythe to double-ended hammer, all made of living, regenerating bone, the power of my reinforced body behind it. I sent shockwaves through the ground when I struck it, but I still couldn't touch the captain.

"Are you really trying?" he taunted, leaning casually out of the way of my attack. "I didn't give you permission to go easy on me."

I stepped back, racking my brains for a way around his technique. There was the technique I'd developed inside the worm, but as I'd never healed Yami or otherwise manipulated his bones there was none of my mana in his body, and it was unlikely that he'd let me touch him for long enough to put some in there. I slowed my assault, watching his reactions to me, and he seemed to take this as an invitation to attack, pressing me onto the back foot. I lifted my weapon to block- a quarterstaff again, and Yami sliced to the side rather than hitting my weapon with the edge of his. My eyes widened with realization in the darkness of my helm- he was being _precious_ about his sword.

I had been busy avoiding his sword, but he had been working to avoid blocking with it or hitting my weapon with the edge. I pressed the initiative, supressing my instincts and putting myself into the same space as his sword, and was rewarded with a curse word from Yami as I aimed an attack for his blade rather than his body.

"This is a new sword! Damn you!"

Yami barked out the incantation for a _dark cloaked blunt slash_ , and I saw stars as I flew backwards. My moment of epiphany had come too little, too late. I landed on my back on the floor, the shell around my head cracked. He strolled over, a cocky smirk on his face, and waited for me to haul myself to my feet. To my surprise, Julius and Jack stood over me too. I assessed my body as I dusted myself off- I was a little scuffed up, but no worse for wear.

"Can you show me the armour again?" The wizard king was animated, completely unlike the implacable leader he had been in the meeting as he bombarded me with questions. I stammered out answers, secretly glad of the distraction.

* * *

It was dark by the time we got out of the magic knight headquarters, and the street was empty save for the odd merchant cart passing by.

"Looks like Finral isn't back yet." Yami gave a sigh, reaching for his lighter. Even without a cigarette, his breath condensed to white smoke in the cold air. "Probably slacking off somewhere. You wanna go get a drink while we wait?"

I hesitated. "Last time I got drunk I ran into the forest and attacked someone."

"Mm, that's true." Yami scratched his chin. "But I've already knocked you out once today. Pretty sure I could do it again if you got too rowdy."

"You didn't knock me out," I said, sourly. I hated to admit it, but even if I had expected it, my defeat still stung. I had liked to imagine us as equals, but there was still a big gap between us.

Yami seemed unperturbed. "Did you want a drink or not?"

I narrowed my eyes at him for what seemed like the millionth time. "I'm paying, aren't I."

Yami gave me a look that said _was that even a question_?

Three drinks in and Yami had figured out how to make me laugh- mostly stories about times he had gone fishing and gotten lost somehow and frightened the locals, or stupid discussions about nouns that should really be verbs. He coaxed a few anecdotes out of me, too, mostly gross medical stories.

Six drinks in and I had completely lost my sense of balance. We stumbled upstairs having rented a room, and sat cross-legged on the wooden floor with our backs to the door, a bottle of something clear and foul-tasting between us.

"I wish flowerboy Vermillion had agreed to fight," said Yami, absently. "You'd have wrecked him, he would have been so pissed."

"Which one was he again?" I asked. I reached for the bottle and toppled over, face first into Yami's lap.

"Oi," Yami grunted. "At least buy me a drink first."

I twisted to look up at him, my head still in his lap. "I bought you a drink. I bought you all the drinks." I gestured clumsily to the bottle. "I bought that drink."

"Eh, I guess." Yami snorted. He put his hand on my head, fingers threading through my hair. I gave a soft noise of appreciation at his warm fingers on my scalp, my body reacting as it always did to his touch. I stared up at him, my arms splayed.

"Hey," he grinned. "Kost, you got a bicep."

"What?" I blinked, my reverie disturbed. I stretched my scrawny arms in front of me. "No way."

"No, really." Yami reached over, taking my wrist in his hand. "Look, when you twist it just so, you can see it."

I supposed he was right. My arm was still painfully thin, particularly when compared to his, but my joints didn't look as disproportionate anymore, and there was a small curve of what could arguably be called muscle between my shoulder and my elbow.

"Like on a deer leg," said Yami, happily.

I frowned, less than happy with the comparison.

He let my arm go, and I reached up, letting my fingers graze the scruff on his face. It was pricklier than I expected, lying close against the skin. I wasn't sure what I wanted, exactly, but Yami didn't stop me. His cheeks were flushed from the alcohol, and he grinned, tilting his cheek against my hand.

He took the cigarette from his mouth, and leaned over. My heart hammered in my chest as he paused, his nose maybe an inch from mine. There was a flash of mischief in his brown eyes as he bent his head, pressing his stubbly chin to my cheek and rubbing vigorously. It was like sandpaper.

"Ack! No!" I laughed, pushing at his forehead and twisting to get away from his scratchy face. He persisted, moving his attack to my unprotected neck. "Get off!"

Yami laughed, but relented, leaving my skin hot where he had rubbed it. "Why'd you do that?" I complained, prodding gingerly at the red mark on my cheek.

He smiled to himself, cigarette hanging from his lips again. "You shoulda seen your face."


	12. Brimful of Mana

I woke with a headache that spanned the width of my skull, as if my head were being crushed in between two rocks, and with my face pressed against Yami's chest, next to his armpit. The edges of his frayed cape tickled against my forehead.

His arm was draped around me, fingers at my ribs, forearm heavy on my side.

I might have felt flattered, were he not holding his katana in a similar manner with his other arm. Perhaps it was the sword, and not Vanessa, that was my true love rival. I rubbed my tongue against the roof of my mouth- it felt like I'd been licking the floor, and my face ached too.

"You awake?" Yami's voice was a rumble in his chest.

I wanted to lie by omission, to stay there for just another moment with my face against his chest, but that would be dishonest. "Yeah," I said, reluctantly. He smelled good, weirdly good, even through the day-old clothes and stale alcohol and cigarette ash.

I pushed myself off of him, screwing my eyes shut against the light that filtered in through the shutters. There were two beds in the room and they were both pristine, blankets still tucked into the bedframes. The bottle of what I could only assume had been paint thinner lay on its side on the floor, a sliver of clear liquid at the bottom. I pulled the shutters open. The light was painfully bright, and seemed to tighten the clamp around my skull, the pain blossoming behind my eyes. I squinted into it anyway.

Yami watched me from the floor, eyes half-lidded. "Oi," he growled. "Quit enduring suffering for the sake of it, knucklehead. Do something useful instead."

I turned. "Like what?"

My captain paused, seeming to consider something, and a smile hovered around his lips. "Buy me breakfast."

If Yami was as hungover as me, he didn't show it. His eyes were a little bloodshot, but he moved with his usual menacing swagger, katana and grimoire at his hips. The morning was crisp and bright, the streets of the city bustling with more people than I had ever seen in one place, but the crowd gave Yami a wide berth, and we walked through the streets as if they were empty as people moved to avoid us. I wondered if it was his physical presence that made the crowd part or if the people here knew him by reputation.

We found a stall in the market nearby that sold food- buckwheat pancakes with salted meat and cheese in paper cones- and sat down at the lip of a large decorative fountain nearby. I eyed my food, feeling nauseous, but the first bite was the most delicious thing I'd ever eaten, a hit of salt and fat, the pancake itself wholesome and savoury. I opened my eyes to find Yami staring at me, his own food finished.

I finished chewing my food. "What?"

"I need to take a shit." Yami narrowed his eyes. "You see a toilet anywhere round here?"

"I saw some bushes back on the last street," I offered.

"Right." Yami rubbed his jaw. "Forget I asked. Just stay here."

He stalked off, the crowd parting around him.

* * *

I wasn't used to crowds, particularly not ones as dense and noisy as the market in the royal capital. With Yami beside me, I'd been alright, but alone I felt a familiar sensation come to me, the same as when I'd found myself surrounded in the forest, with foes all around me, and it combined with my headache somehow. I closed my eyes, trying to quell the feeling as I sensed the mana around me. Kikka's mana had been completely different to that in the forest, and the capital's was different again. In the forest, life and plant mana had run through the trees, as if everything was a single living thing, but here the mana seemed to run through the crowds, like water mana through a river. Focusing, I could pick out nobility from commoners, their mana vibrant and powerful. I tried to think of them like they were trees, or squirrels, and not threats, but that didn't help- not when a powerful mage was standing across the square from me, unmoving.

I looked up to see the woman who had been standing behind the blue rose captain. She was tall, her skin darker than anyone's I'd seen, and she wore her dark hair short around her face.

"Oh, hey!" She gave me a wave as she wandered over. "Kost, wasn't it?"

I paused to finish my pancake. "That's right."

"I'm Sol!" She beamed at me, sticking out her hand in front of her. I wiped my hands on my napkin before shaking hers. "I'm sorry I didn't stay to chat yesterday- big sis doesn't like your captain very much."

"Big sis?" I asked.

"Oh, that's what we call our captain- what I call her, anyway." Sol grinned again, in a way that reminded me of Asta. From what I could remember, the blue rose captain was pale with blonde hair, nothing like Sol, but I let it slide. Maybe they were adopted. "How are you finding life with the black bulls? I hear they're a rough bunch."

Somewhere in the distance, a flock of birds took flight, as if startled. I frowned, thinking of my squadmates. "They're my friends."

I looked back down to see the captain of the blue rose pushing through the crowd behind her subordinate. She was dressed as she had been yesterday, in cloak, armour and helmet. "Sol," she said, archly. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, hey big sis!" Sol said it cheerfully, but I saw her captain's jaw twitch when she said it. "I found Kost, captain Sukehiro's new knight, from yesterday."

The woman stared down at me, sunlight glinting from the top of her helm. I felt better for some food, but my hangover headache was still there and the light only made it worse. I narrowed my eyes at her. "Hello, captain-" I hesitated. No-one had told me her name, and I couldn't very well call her captain _big sis_. "-of the blue rose."

"Roselei," she informed me, archly. "Charlotte Roselei. It surprises me that you would come to a meeting of the captains without even knowing their names."

My heart sank. Perhaps I should have called her captain big sis- it might have been better to be insolent than to expose my ignorance. "It was at short notice," I said.

She inclined her head. Her helmet and her severe hairstyle hid it, but she was actually very beautiful, her blonde brows furrowing over blue almond-shaped eyes. "I read my squad's report of your work in the desert dungeon," she said. "It's good to see more women becoming magic knights. Though it's a shame that you had to join-" her eyes flickered to my cape "- _his_ squad."

I frowned. "I like my squad." I'd said it reflexively, but I knew in my gut it was true. Putting my feelings for Yami aside, they were all good people. Asta was way nicer to me than I deserved, nevermind that he was that nice to everyone, and Gauche showed me his pictures of his sister, which for Gauche passed for friendly. Charmy left cookies or leftovers out for me when I was doing pot wash, Luck pestered me to spar with him, Gordon had made a doll of me, and love-rival or not, Vanessa acted like she was my friend. Even Noelle, snooty as she was, actually deigned to sit next to me at dinner sometimes. I felt my mana flare under the surface in response to my emotions, and I bit it down. It was anger. "Don't assume I'm just there because I was out of options."

Charlotte seemed taken aback. "I suppose that captain Sukehiro is at least competent," she allowed, her face flushed. "Even if he is an uncivilised barbarian. And brutish-" she continued to list attributes, and I felt my anger rise again. "-slovenly, rude-"

I stood, my mana blazing from my skin. A familiar touch on my shoulder snapped me back.

Charlotte stopped mid-list, her expression fixed as she stared at the man behind me. "Y-yami!" she said.

"Oi, prickly queen." Yami loomed over us, his grip like iron on my shoulder as he addressed the blue rose captain. I hadn't seen him approach. "Haven't you got your own idiots to look after?"

Charlotte seemed to recover somewhat, regaining her haughty demeanour. "The blue rose is a group of powerful and just women," she said, Sol nodding behind her. "Hardly _idiots_ , as you put it."

"Just women, eh?" Yami smirked. "Explains why you don't have a boyfriend, I guess."

"A _boyfriend_." Charlotte pulled herself up to her full height, her voice dripping with venom. "I am fully devoted to my duties as a magic knight captain. Any relationship would be a distraction."

Yami gave a sniff. "Where's the fun in that?" He glanced over at me. "C'mon, Kost, we're distracting Thorn Queen here from her captain duties."

I wasn't sure why, exactly, but I could feel the blue rose captain's eyes on me as we left, two blazing chips of blue ice. Was she suspicious of me? Perhaps she knew about Barrow. I shook my head, dismissing the thoughts.

"The hell was that?" Yami growled, as soon as we were out of earshot. "I leave you for five minutes-"

"What was what?" I squirmed under his grip.

"It looked a lot to me like you were about to throw down with a magic knight captain," said Yami, unamused.

I looked away, a tight knot in my chest. "She said you were a barbarian."

"Is that all?" Yami rubbed his face.

"No-one should be allowed to say that," I said, my throat tight.

"For fuck's sake, Kost." Yami relaxed his grip on my shoulder, then squeezed it- a gentler act than the one that had snapped me out of my fugue, and I nearly stumbled. "Don't let Charlotte's nonsense get to you. She's got a stick up her ass, that's all."

I looked at him. I supposed the familiarity of his touch wasn't out of nowhere given that he'd let me use his chest like a pillow, but that didn't stop my heart from beating like it was about to escape from my ribs. I narrowed my eyes at him, willing my pulse to slow. Anger, I could understand. Anger, I could channel. But what I felt for Yami wasn't anger. "You knew her name? This whole time?"

"Yeah." Yami smirked to himself. "What kinda idiot do you think I am? I know everyone's names. Just don't use 'em that much."

We found a dishevelled Finral in an establishment in the western quarter of the city, and he made us a portal back to the hideout.

* * *

The black bulls hideout was more-or-less as we had left it, a small fire crackling in the hearth, and a scorch mark across the couch that hadn't been there previously. The scent of baking bread wafted in from the kitchen, probably Charmy pulling one of her all-nighters. As ever, the transition of the portal was a shock, but each time I came back to the hideout, it seemed a little more like home. I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a corner and sleep for a few more hours, but instead I headed to the kitchen to see if Charmy had pans for me to clean. To my surprise, Finral followed me.

"Well?" His look was expectant, as he leaned in, almost conspiratorial.

I frowned, leaning away from him as I headed through the kitchen door. "Well what?"

Finral smiled. "How'd it go?"

"How did what go?" I grabbed an apron from a hook.

"I left you with the captain." Finral elbowed me softly in the ribs, looking pleased with himself.

"You left us _on purpose_?" I hissed. I looked around, but luckily neither Charmy or her sheep were in the kitchen. "Why?"

"You like him, right?" Finral looked nonplussed. "I'm just trying to be a good wingman, that's all."

Privately, I wondered if Finral had an ulterior motive. Perhaps he thought Yami being paired off would benefit him in some way- less taxi duty, maybe? "Your way of setting people up is to leave them together in a random place?" I asked, slipping the apron over my head and tying the knot behind my back.

"Well, when you say it like that it sounds tawdry." Finral rolled his eyes. "Did you talk?" he asked.

We had done more than talk. I felt warm at the memory of my head in Yami's lap, his fingers in my hair. But I hadn't confessed to him. It wasn't that the words had stuck in my throat, that they had welled in my chest and been held down- it was just that I hadn't remembered to. I had been busy laughing at Yami's jokes and trying to sound clever, or too deep in the moment, my focus drawn by his proximity. Perhaps if I had remembered, he would have done more than rub his stubble against my face. I'd thought for a second that he'd been about to kiss me, and the even the thought of it now made my heart skip a beat. "Well-" I said.

Finral perked up. "Yeah?"

"Nothing happened," I said. I looked aside, clenching my jaw. "Well, obviously things happened, just nothing like that."

"Guess we're both unlucky in love then," said Finral easily, taking a seat on the countertop. "You got a second choice, now that he's rejected you?"

"I don't think it works like that. It's not a sports team. You don't get a reserve boyfriend if your first choice falls through." I turned away, grabbing the soap and heading for the sink. "And-" I paused. "-he didn't reject me."

"He didn't?" squeaked Finral, and I turned to find him laying fully on the counter, chin resting in his hands.

The kitchen door clicked open as Charmy came in from her garden, pushing a wheelbarrow full of muddy vegetables. "Kost!" she piped. "I have peas for you to pod, la!"

"I'll be right over!" I promised. I pursed my lips as I turned to Finral, and lowered my voice. "I shouldn't be talking about this."

Finral gave an airy sigh. "I guess you're right."


	13. Get in the Boat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter was so hard to write, I like Yami/Charlotte interaction so much, and when I write it it never feels quite the same.

I shelled the peas methodically, splitting each pod apart with my hands and swiping the peas themselves out into a bowl at my feet. The pods themselves went in a separate pile, though I wasn't sure if Charmy wanted them for a dish, or just for compost. Every few minutes the tiny gourmand would hurry past with something or other, and if I was lucky, offer me a spoonful of her cooking to taste. At the centre of the kitchen sat a massive cauldron, stirred by one of Charmy's sheep chefs- some kind of soup.

"Bread, la?" Charmy tottered up with one of the rolls she had been baking, and pushed it towards me.

"Thank you." My hands were full with the peas, so I took the roll gently in my teeth. It had been cooling on the side for a while, so it didn't burn my mouth. Charmy patted my head like I was some kind of wild animal, and I frowned. Should I have taken it with my hands? Regardless, it was still warm, the inside perfectly fluffy, and the golden outside perfectly crisp. I chewed it contentedly. "It's good."

Charmy smiled and nodded in agreement, pushing a second roll into her own face.

"Kost." Yami slid open the door to the kitchen and loomed there, a large pack on his back. "We're going on a mission. Get your swimsuit."

"Oh! Captain! Bread?" Charmy waved a third roll at the captain, peering curiously at his pack. "You packed your shichirin, la?"

I scowled up at Yami. "You know I can't swim, right."

"Oh, I know." The look Yami gave me was sly as he took the roll from Charmy. "Contrary to popular belief I do read the reports these idiots submit before I sign them off." He ate the roll in a single bite, before looking around him. "The hell is Finral?"

"I think he went to his room."

Yami shook his head. "Slacking off. Finral!" he called. "I want a portal to Jura beach!"

"The beach?" Vanessa's voice replied from the common room. "You're going to the beach, captain?"

Before I knew it, the black bulls had assembled. Vanessa had already changed into a bathing suit, Luck and Magna were screaming the word _beach_ at each other, Asta was talking excitedly about endurance training, Noelle was insisting that she be allowed to come if Asta was coming, Charmy was asking the captain if he would be cooking anything, and Gordon stood at the back, mumbling about friendship.

Finral stood next to Yami, and glanced over at me, his face sheepish.

"This is a solo mission," said Yami, firmly.

"You just invited Kost!" objected Magna. "I heard you!"

"Yeah, a solo mission for two people." Yami glared at the group that had gathered. "Don't you miscreants have other missions to get on with?"

"Nope!" said Luck. "Gauche was worried that he wouldn't get his day with Marie today, so we speed-ran all of them! He even did the paperwork."

Yami's expression was serious as he stared down his squad.

"The beach is great!" Asta told me, unprompted. "It's really warm, and there's sunshine and there's watermelons and you can use the sand for resistance training for your legs-"

"Doofusta, it's winter," said Noelle. "There aren't going to be any watermelons, and it's going to be cold."

"Oh," said Asta, who had clearly not considered this. "I'm sure we can still play volleyball and stuff, though."

I nodded. "That sounds pretty fun, actually."

"Alright," said Yami, seeming to decide something. "Everyone's coming on the mission. We're gonna fight the sea monster together."

"S-sea monster?" Noelle stuttered.

"Yay! Sea monster!" Luck punched the air.

I rifled through the clothes I'd bought in Kikka. Had I even bought a swimsuit? I passed over a sleeveless dress, a fluffy white bathrobe and a set of pyjamas before I found it. It was one of the things I'd let Vanessa pick for me- a black one-piece with straps crossed across the chest. I hesitated a moment before packing it, stuffing it in the pouch that held my grimoire.

* * *

The beach was nothing like Asta had described. There were no watermelons, no girls in bathing suits, except for the black bulls, and the wind had a bitter chill to it, carrying a cold sort of rain as it drove frothing white waves against the rocks. The sea itself seemed to stretch forever, no sign of an end until it met the sky. I stood staring at it as the others milled about on the beach.

Yami rapped on the top of my head like it was a door- just hard enough to be painful. "Anyone in?"

I batted his hand away. "Does the sea always look like that?"

Yami frowned, looking out at the shore. "You've never even seen it before, huh."

"No," I agreed. I'd hardly had the opportunity to go beyond Barrow and the surrounding villages as a kid, and after Barrow I'd been in the forest, which didn't border the ocean.

Yami rubbed the back of his neck. "It changes. You get used to it. There's a lot of natural mana here, so the storms can get pretty metal- look forward to that, by the way."

Asta stormed across our field of view, screaming the words _cold weather training_ as he ran, and Yami sighed. "Better get these reprobates straightened out before we go," he muttered, half to himself, and he handed me his pack. What looked like a small stove hung from the back, a griddle on top. "Go put this in the boat for me."

I shouldered the gear and headed to the boat as Yami rounded up the squad. It was a small sailboat, probably intended for two or three people, rather than the half-squad we were bringing. Vanessa was already draped across the prow like a backwards figurehead, her breasts barely contained by her bikini and her hair plastered down by the freezing drizzle.

"Aren't you cold?" I asked, as I put down the pack. I didn't sense her using mana skin. "And where's Finral?"

Vanessa shook her head, raising her liquor bottle in my direction. "Eighty proof overcoat, sweetheart," she said, with a small smile. "You should try it sometime. Finral gets seasick, so he went home."

So he'd marooned me again. "Wouldn't it be safer if he stayed?" I sat down, watching Magna chase Luck across the beach. He was wearing some kind of loincloth, and Luck was in shorts- clearly Vanessa wasn't the only one who was choosing to ignore the freezing weather.

Vanessa shrugged, taking a swig from her bottle. "There's most of us here- and the _captain_." she added, winking at me. "This'll be a walk in the park."

I looked up just in time to see Noelle hurtling through the air towards us, pigtails fluttering behind her like pennants. She landed in the sand face-first, leaving a furrow.

"Does he really have to throw us?" She sat up, flicking the sand from her hair. Gordon landed in a similar manner a moment later, the furrow he ploughed with his face perfectly parallel to Noelle's, and I stopped to admire Yami's accuracy.

Gordon sat up with a sheepish smile. "An adventure with my precious friends," he murmured, barely loud enough to hear.

"Guys! Look who I found!" Asta charged up towards the boat, two magic knights I'd never seen before in tow. They wore the same pale gold cloaks that vice-captain Langris had, so I guessed they were golden dawn members. One was a tall, dark-haired boy, and the other was a girl with wavy red hair. Her eyes looked familiar somehow, but I couldn't quite place them. "Kost, this is my rival, Yuno! And Noelle's cousin, Mimosa."

I managed a wave and a nod, and the boy returned them. The girl was friendlier than either of us, and greeted me with a smile. "Nice to meet you."

Charmy's head popped up from behind the gunnel. "Meal-saving prince!" she said, her eyes widening as they fixed on Yuno.

"Excuse me. I think you forgot the most important being here." A small woman, no taller than a hand and covered in a glowing green aura, emerged from behind Yuno's hair. "I am Sylph, one of the four elemental spirits."

The others seemed to have met the creature before, judging by their reactions. I had heard of the four elemental spirits- my village had stories about Salamander, but I'd always assumed they were legends. Curious, I lidded my eyes, sensing for the small creature's mana. It was difficult to tell, with Noelle, Charmy and Vanessa so nearby, but Sylph's mana seemed immense, and it overlapped with Yuno's substantially.

Vanessa looked up from her drink. "Don't you kids usually have a babysitter?"

"Klaus had another matter to attend to," answered Yuno, his tone clipped. He looked around, frowning. "Why are there so many of you here? And your captain-" he added, spotting Yami on the end of the beach, Magna and Luck under his arms. "This wasn't a highly rated mission."

"We finished all of our missions!" said Asta, his face lighting up into a grin. "So we decided to help the captain on the last one."

That wasn't exactly what had happened, but maybe it was from Asta's point of view.

Yuno stared at Asta, his expression unreadable as Yami approached.

"Oi," Yami set Luck and Magna down in the boat as if they were barrels. "What are Vangeance's goons doing here? You idiots invite them?"

"Nossir!" Asta yelled.

Mimosa looked from Asta to Yami. "Captain Sukehiro," she said, sweetly. "I would like to join your team on this mission."

Yami paused to exhale smoke, his expression one of confusion. "The hell?"

Yuno was looking at Asta, a small smile on his face. "Me too."

"Tch." Yami pulled a face. "I guess everyone and their dog already joined, so two more won't make a difference. If you can fit on the boat, you can join."

Yuno nodded, looking satisfied, and Asta grinned at him as Yami set to adjusting the ropes.

We pushed the boat down the beach. Yami could have probably carried alone- hell, any one of the team probably could have carried it or swept it along with magic- but instead he stood back and let us all carry it together, leaping on at the last minute when the waves were lapping at the sides. He'd changed into a loincloth getup quite similar to Magna's, and it showed an impressive amount of him. I tried not to stare. With everyone on board, it was crowded, barely room for all of us to sit, and the boat sat low in the water. I was squashed between Mimosa and Noelle, while Magna, much to his discomfort, had ended up next to Vanessa at the prow.

"Magnaa, I'm cold. Show us your balls." Vanessa

"What?!" When Magna blushed, his entire body changed colour.

"I could lift up his loincloth for you if you like," chirped Luck, from his perch on top of the mast.

"No, I meant your fire balls, fufu." Vanessa took a draught from her bottle. "What, you think I meant something else?"

"If you set fire to my boat, I will kill you," said Yami, darkly, from his seat by the rudder.

"Is it usually this chaotic?" Mimosa asked.

"The captain's here, so nobody's getting too rowdy," I said.

"This isn't too rowdy?" Mimosa looked surprised.

I nodded. "Usually there's more fighting."

At the other end of the boat, Asta, squeezed between Gordon and Charmy, leaned on the gunnel, talking animatedly to Yuno, who hovered in the air next to the boat, his magic allowing him to keep pace effortlessly. From what Asta had mentioned, they had grown up together, and they seemed close, the dark-haired boy smiling as Asta talked. Vanessa walked past, her drunken sway somehow in sync with the movement of the boat.

"Captaain," she called, bending over to look under the seats, and giving everyone, but especially Yami, a full view of her goods. "Where's the booze?"

"You forgot to bring your own, huh." Yami seemed nonplussed.

Mimosa looked over at the captain with a small frown. "Shouldn't we be scouting?"

"Eh?" Yami frowned at Noelle's cousin. "We could, but we don't need to. We've got her," he said, gesturing with his head, and it took me a second to realise he was talking about me. "She's got a precognition spell."

"Kost can see the future?" Vanessa stared at me, her purple eyes sharp.

"I guess you've never seen her fight all-out, huh." said Yami.

"She has bone magic," said Luck, brightly.

"And she can heal," added Magna. Yami shot him a suspicious look, lips pursed around his cigarette, but didn't comment.

Noelle shifted uncomfortably next to me. "In the sand dungeon she controlled a creature through her magic."

"Oh!" Asta looked up from his conversation with Yuno. "Like the witch queen!"

"The witch queen?" I repeated. "Isn't she a myth?"

The black bulls looked at each other. Yuno and Mimosa looked at me. Vanessa grabbed a bottle of spirits from under the thwart, uncorked it, and drained it in one long draught.

"Hey!" Magna barked from the prow. "Leave some for the rest of us, wouldya?"

"Should we help her?" I asked, as Vanessa wobbled over to Yami and collapsed onto him face-first.

Yami made a dismissive noise as he pushed Vanessa off of him, and she slid onto the floor like a dead snake. "She just wants to be unconscious for a bit. She'll be fine."

"The witch queen is Vanessa's mother," said Asta, helpfully. "When my arms were broken, we went to visit her. She fixed me up, but then she tried to enslave me and murder the rest of us. We survived, though," he added, giving a thumbs up.

I blinked. "Oh." That went a little way to explaining her reaction, I supposed. And considering I'd just met one of the four elemental spirits, the witch queen being real too wasn't such a stretch.

"She's a blood magic user," said Yami, pausing to exhale smoke. "And stupid strong. I figured maybe you two were related, but that sort of thing doesn't matter much really."

I shook my head. "The only blood mage I knew was my father."

"Your dad, huh." Yami scratched his chin, his brown eyes on me. "Well, I never heard of that old wino having sons." He looked down at Vanessa, who had pooled at his feet, and nudged her with his toe. He looked to Asta. "Oi, kid, deal with this, wouldya?"

Asta stammered out a stream of apologies as he attempted to scoop up Vanessa in a way which didn't involve touching her inappropriately, finally settling on something like a full nelson hold. Noelle, Mimosa and Yuno were all watching with something akin to killing intent, and the smirk on Yami's face told me that he knew exactly what he'd just done.

"I can move her with my wind magic," offered Yuno.

"Like hell you are!" Sylph buzzed angrily in front of his face.

"Don't dump her on me!" Magna protested as Asta approached him, backing off as best the small boat would allow. The boat listed dangerously in the water as Magna teetered from the gunnel, Luck laughing maniacally at him from above. "She's gonna be all handsy!"

I squeezed out of the space between Noelle and Mimosa and went over to Yami, sitting cross-legged at his feet. "So, what did you need my runes for?"

He tilted his head, shifting his leg to make room for me. "That's easy," he said. "Take us to where the monster is."

_Throw the bones._ I called the incantation into the wind.


	14. Black Flags

We were in the Clover sea, the sheltered region between two peninsula at the south of the country. According to the mission briefing, which Yami had reluctantly let me read, the creature had been seen sinking merchant ships sailing the straits between the neighbouring Heart kingdom and the port towns of the noble region of Clover. According to survivors, it travelled accompanied by a cold mist that hung on the surface of the water, could summon storms, and had two heads, both snakes.

Mimosa's plants showed a rotating map of the sea around us, depressingly empty. Our little sailboat sat in the middle, like a toy, and this far from the shore Mimosa's range wasn't wide enough to let us see the bottom. Nearer the coast, there had been rocks, both under the surface and jutting from it, but Yami had steered us around them without so much of a glance at Mimosa's map, his own prescient sense guiding him.

Our sails billowed, in part I suspected due to Yuno's wind magic, and we left a wake behind us.

"Are you sure we're going in the right direction?" Mimosa's expression was doubtful. "I'm sorry, Kost, but I've not seen your magic working before."

"Ah-" I hesitated.

"She mostly uses it to cheat at poker," interjected Yami, deadpan.

I scowled. "That was one time! And besides," I added, not bothering to look at Yami's stupid face. "There's nothing in the rules of poker that say you can't predict the future beforehand."

"But does it work?" asked Mimosa.

"Oh, it works," sniffed Noelle. She'd moved to the prow, wand grasped firmly in her hand. "Not always exactly how you expect it to, but it works."

I flushed, embarrassed by her unexpected expression of support. "If the runes say it's here, it's here."

Asta lay on his side on the deck, staring up at Mimosa's projection. "What are those?" he asked, pointing at something near the bottom.

Yuno floated down from his post by the mast, his golden dawn uniform billowing. "They look like fish."

"Ah!" Asta grinned, and waved at the projection. "Hello, little fishies."

Noelle snorted. "They can't hear you, y'know."

"If anyone can be friends with all the fishes, it is my best friend Asta," said Gordon, though no-one seemed to hear him.

Luck hopped down to look at the fish projection with Asta, his expression interested, but his face soon dropped. "They're too small," he complained. "Not even worth fighting. I could just put my hands in the water and boom!" He let a small bolt of lightning arc between his hands.

"Please don't, la. That will spoil the flavour," said Charmy, who was trying to edge closer to Yuno. "With small fish like that, the best thing to do is fry them in oil. Then they will be delicious."

"A meal with friends," said Gordon, dreamily.

"Little fishies!" said Asta, shielding the projection from view with his body.

"Look," said Mimosa, pointing. "I see something."

Not on the map, but on the horizon. We looked away from Asta to see a crackling thunderhead, rolling on in.

Yami perked up immediately, his eyes lighting up as he stared into the storm. "Hah. This might actually be interesting." He stood, one hand on the tiller. "Wind kid! Full speed ahead! Noelle! Make sure we don't sink!" He glanced at Luck. "Get back on the mast- if we get hit by lightning I'll kill you! Asta! I want your sword on the front!" Yami barked orders easily, and the crew and they followed them. I looked at him expectantly, and he grinned. "Work with Mimosa and patch up any holes."

We hit the edge of the thunderhead and it was as if we'd stepped through one of Finral's portals. A sheet of rain greeted us, and the boat lurched dramatically. Most of us clung to the sides. A bolt of lightning crackled down into the ocean, perilously close to us, and then one struck directly on the mast.

"Magna, look!" Luck laughed as he spread his arms, the power of the lightning strike coursing through him as the wind whipped his hair. "I am the storm!"

"This isn't a natural storm," said Yami, frowning, his grip on the tiller as we were swept forwards. He'd abandoned his cigarette in the driving rain, and like the rest of us he was soaked to the skin, water running down his contours in rivulets. I tried not to stare.

"It's not?" I asked. "But it's huge."

Yuno nodded in silent agreement, his face serious. There was a lot of mana around, and it seemed to swirl randomly. It was a little odd how quickly we had passed into it, but it didn't seem too different to any of the storms I had weathered living outside.

"The ki is wrong," said Yami. "A storm like this- should have storm ki."

"Ki?" I asked. Was that the name Yami gave his prescient senses? He looked as if he were about to answer me, but a wave hit us, half the height of the sails, and the boat lurched as if it were about to capsize.

Yami's attention snapped elsewhere. "Noelle!"

"S-sorry!" Mana swirled around Noelle's feet as she exerted control on the water around us, and there was a panicked edge to her voice. "I'm running out of mana."

"Charmy!" bellowed Yami, and to my surprise the tiny mage was already running to the prow, a box of something in her arms.

"I made these earlier, as a snack, la," she said, plucking something from the box and poking it towards Noelle's mouth. "Eat up, your mana will recover!"

We continued through the storm, everyone freezing and drenched. Vanessa managed to stay unconscious in the bottom of the boat somehow, and Yami set Gordon to bailing out the water that Noelle let in.

We saw the snake heads in silhouette first, obscured by the storm, and Asta shouted with excitement, but as they drew closer, I realised they were static. Not a monster, then, but a _ship_.

The ship had two figureheads, one for each of its hulls. Each of them was a serpent, the neck a gracile arc, the mouth open as if ready to strike. The sails, previously hidden by the storm, loomed black, a symbol emblazoned on them in white- that of three interlocking wheels, spokes drawn in the central one. Yami swore under his breath.

I glanced back at him. "You know these guys?"

Yami grunted an affirmative, his eyes narrowed.

"Bad guys, yeah?" Luck bounced on the balls of his feet. "Oh, they're strong! I can feel them."

"They're from the Riderback Armada," said Yami. "Pirates. And from the looks of it, they're the ones we're after."

Pirates. Bandits of the sea. I narrowed my eyes at the ship. I didn't need to dredge up my rage. It was there, as it always was, right under the surface.

We drew closer, and I could make out figures on the deck, and feel the mana accumulated there. Luck was right. They were strong. Men with a little more power than the rest, thinking they could do what they wanted. The mission briefing counted a dozen ships sunk, but something told me their career was longer than a single disruption of a trade route.

Yami didn't even bother giving an order to attack. Yuno was first away, followed shortly by Luck. Asta ran the length of the boat, and I thought for a moment that he was about to jump in the water and swim, but instead he pulled his sword from his grimoire, holding it across his body, the hilt in one hand and the blade in the other. The absence of mana seemed to flow from the sword and into his body, and then flicker to life, a black wing erupting from his left shoulderblade.

"Yuno!" yelled Asta, as he flung himself from the prow and into the sky. "You're not leaving me behind!"

I looked at Noelle, her own mana bright around her as she stood at the prow of the boat, her wand in her hand and her pigtails whipped by the wind. Mimosa had grown her scouting plant into something more aggressive, cannon-like seed pods sprouting from the top of it. Charmy was… cooking for some reason, a pair of sheep chefs taking up the space that the others had left behind.

"You need a lift?" Yami gave me a sly grin, holding out his hand to me and miming a throw.

"What do you think?" I muttered, before I recited the incantations for my _bone shell_ and _bone blade_. I was certain I could make the jump, but something about the storm-whipped ocean made me uneasy. I steeled myself. Fear was for the weak. "I can do it."

Yami's eyes were on me, suspicious, but he nodded. "Try not to smash it up too bad," he said. "There's a bounty on pirate ships."

So that was why he hadn't ordered Noelle to sink the thing. He just wanted booze money. I shook my head. "No promises."

I crouched, letting my mana accumulate in the muscles of my legs, before I leapt, the force of my jump sending our sailboat backwards in the water.

I cleared the gap between Yami's boat and the pirate vessel as the snake-headed ship drew alongside and unloaded a barrage of attacks at us. Yami drew his katana from the pack at his feet, swiping a fireball out of the air with ease, and Mimosa's plant launched a counterattack, shooting seeds that hit the enemy's attacks midair.

I hit the deck, digging in with my clawed gauntlets to stop myself skidding. But my body remembered the forest, where I was the bone devil. I whipped round, kicking the legs out from under the man behind me, firing a spike into the deck to throw myself upright again. Beside me, Luck was laughing, eyes blazing as he sparred with a mage who shot at him with splinters of wood. Further up the deck, one-winged Asta fought alongside Yuno. Both Luck and Yuno were in their element, surrounded by compatible mana, whereas I had less to work with.

Luck's eyes widened when he spotted me. "So cool!" he said, gesturing to my armour with one gauntlet as he flung himself from the path of an attack. "We should definitely fight after this!"

I nodded. "Sure."

The pirates were certainly more skilled than the typical bandit crew that I'd faced, some of them more on par with magic knights. Even the weaker mages were seasoned, using their attributes to support their seniors. The splinter mage, a scarred woman with her hair in braids, ripped shards of black wood from the deck and mask, sending them after Luck in a cloud. I was sure that one was dead-on, about to catch the boy dead in the chest, but I caught a flash of red, and Vanessa's pet cat was sitting on Luck's shoulder, rubbing its face against his cheek. Luck grinned as he hopped back, unharmed. "Thanks, Vanessa!"

"Hey!" I formed part of my bone shell into a shield in front of me as I barrelled towards the splinter mage. She spread her arms, summoning another cloud of splinters, but I held her focus long enough for Luck to zip in from the side, taking her out with a gauntlet to the jaw. Luck flashed me a smile before he was off again, after another strong opponent. I swept through a pair of weaker pirates, skewering them to the deck. Not all of them had Clover grimoires- some had Diamond or Heart.

My next opponent was a wind mage, a tall man with blue-white hair. Like the rest of the pirates his clothing was mismatched, a gold sash over a white silk shirt. He held a whirlwind in the palm of one hand as he advanced, and I hurled myself to one side, aiming for the rigging. He gestured, and the air around my feet swirled, turning me. I crashed to the deck, bracing myself with my armour and rolling. The pirate grinned, and drew his cutlass, his wind magic sheathing its blade. I rolled to my feet, bringing my bone blade up to meet his weapon, reinforcing my legs, my arms, and my core, and forcing him back with brute strength. I followed up with a slash, pressing forward and forcing him back even as he parried. Mana sparked on mana, my bone regrowing even as it was chipped away.

Magna came flying in- maybe hurled by Yami, I hadn't seen- his two-tone hair plastered back. I grabbed the back of his shirt as he landed, pivoting on my heel to preserve the deck beneath us, and swung him round to face my opponent. Magna gave a yell, casting a fireball into the wind pirate's face. The wind mage raised his blade, but it wasn't enough to deflect the attack, and he was blasted backwards.

"What gives?" I asked, as we stood back-to-back, pirates hemming us in. "I thought you'd be back there, with the artillery."

Magna scoffed. "Like hell I'm letting Luck get all the credit," he said. "'Sides, it's manlier to be on the front lines. The boss said so."

Where Luck and Yuno had huge affinity with the environment, Magna's attribute put him at a serious disadvantage. He still manifested fire, but with none of the bombast I expected from him, and the way he clenched his jaw as he cast spoke of the effort he expended.

I grinned under my helm as I kicked a man in the solar plexus, knocking him into one of the enemy support mages, then expanded the bone shell on my arm into a shield for myself to block a spear of ice from a second opponent. "That means I'm manly, huh."

"Freaky, more like." Magna sniffed, batting away another pirate. He glanced at me sideways, his eyes hidden by his dark glasses. "Maybe a bit manly. But mostly you're freaky."

I braced myself against another attack, healing my shield where the ice had damaged it. "Thanks, I guess."

Magna's brow creased with annoyance, his focus taken by creating another barrage of fireballs. His accuracy was good, hitting several of the pirates surrounding us through their defenses. "Hey, you asked."

Our opponents were thinning out rapidly, and Magna and Luck worked well together, exploiting the openings that the other's attack style left.

The pirate captain was holding off Asta and Yuno. He was a lithe man, as slight as the green mantis captain, but his hair was silver, tied in a short ponytail under a large tricorn hat. His silk shirt was open to the navel, revealing his narrow, smooth-skinned chest. In his hand was what might generously be called a whip- a baton attached to a heavy metal chain. Whenever one of the two boys closed in on him, he would lash out, the length of the chain electrifying as it swung. Asta moved to block it with his sword, but the chain changed direction midair, grazing Asta's human side and slicing through one of Yuno's long-range attacks in a single skilful sweep.

Yuno seemed entirely too wary of the chain. Certainly the captain was a skilled duellist, but Yuno was acting as if one touch of the weapon would be the end for him. Could he sense something about it that I couldn't? I frowned as I advanced up the deck alongside Magna, knocking some of the remaining crew over the side. Maybe he was like me- hated fighting lightning users.

We closed on the pirate captain; Magna and I from the deck and Luck from the rigging. Asta was bleeding from the injury on his arm, his chest heaving, but he was maintaining his demonic form, the raindrops that hit his shadowy wing seeming to vanish. Usually, I couldn't sense any mana from Asta at all, but this was somehow worse than that, like a void in my senses. It made me uneasy. The captain's whip was entirely too fast, too, the lightning turning the air to ozone around it as it changed its trajectory.

There was no way for me to avoid it. But what if I didn't have to? I thought of my fight with Yami, saw the weapon's path in my mind's eye. Of the five of us, I was the best armoured.

I went in low, aiming for the captain's knees, and he twisted, the chain whipping round, seeking an opening in my defense. I didn't bother blocking, but moved myself to meet the attack, raising my arm so that the chain wound round it.

The hit was a thundercrack in my ears as the chain wound round my arm, and I poured mana into my armour, growing my bones over the chain where it came into contact with my armour. The pirate captain snarled as the chain failed to whip back, sending a bolt of lightning down the chain. My nerves were on fire as the electricity seized the muscles in my arm, and I clenched my jaw and staggered, willing my mana to hold on to the burning, white-hot metal. I dug the spear in my hand point-first into the deck, giving a path to the electricity that wasn't through my body.

As one, my teammates rounded on the captain. Luck with a thunderbolt and Yuno with a whirlwind and Magna with a fireball. But Asta was first, shooting forwards faster than thought and hitting him squarely in the face with the flat of his sword before the rest connected. The man crumpled, unconscious on the deck.

Asta gave a gasp and fell to his knees before the captain's body, his demonic side flickering out.

I shook the chain from my arm, coughing smoke.

"Are you crazy?" Magna got up in my face- well, my helm. "That coulda taken your arm off!"

I brushed off flakes of charred bone, the plates already knitting beneath. " _Your_ arm, maybe." I said.

Magna gave me a look that was either disgusted or impressed, I wasn't sure.

But there was something else that was making me uneasy. The storm wasn't a natural one. And even with the pirate captain unconscious, it hadn't dissipated.

"Did you feel that?" I asked. "That mana-"

Yuno gave a nod. "I feel it."

Luck looked anxious. "Me too."

The mage behind the storm came into view with a peal of thunder. She floated midair, blue-green hair spread wide as if she were lying on her back in a pool. She wore a white dress, plastered to her by the rain.

The pressure she exuded was unreal, mana crackling over her body. And on her head, a crown. Spines of metal jutted from her forehead and temples, each one humming with power. Her grimoire hovered level with her waist, not the blue of a water attribute, as I had expected, but a pure, bright white, a three-leafed clover embossed on the cover.

Luck's mouth opened with delight. "Wow!"

Yuno looked unruffled, though his brow furrowed slightly. "No way that's a single person's mana."

"Hey!" I looked up from leaning on my spear, which I'd dug point first into the deck. "You there! Pirate lady!"

Her bluish lips twisted into something like a smile, and to my surprise, she spoke. Her voice had an odd timbre to it, but that might have just been the wind that whipped around us. "I'm Morgan. I rule here."

"You've been sinking ships!" Asta joined the yelling. "That's wrong and you should stop!"

The floating mage's head snapped sharply in Asta's direction. "Who are you," she snarled. "To order me?"

Asta glowered, unintimidated. "My name's Asta!" he said. "I'm going to be the wizard king!"

Yuno made an audible _tch_ sound, his facial expression shifting slightly.

Morgan tilted her head. "Are you, now?" Her smile was a slow thing, and she raised one blue-grey arm, mana running through it, and the sea beneath us shifted. "Even if you are," she said. "It doesn't matter now. Wheel magic," she intoned. "Disaster spiral." The currents of mana, which I had dismissed as natural, converged, flowing together in a counterclockwise wheel, and spun. The water dropped away beneath her, giving way to vertigo-inducing blackness as a whirlpool formed. The deck beneath us lurched as we were swept along, and Yuno scowled, a gold-green aura around him as he raised a hand. I felt his mana flare as he bent the wind to aid us, blasting outwards from the centre of the spiral and stopping us from being dragged into the blackness.


	15. To the Bottom of the Ocean

"Asta!" Magna shouted. "Use your devil thing again!"

"I can't-" Asta panted. "I need time. For my body." He shook his head. "I can use it once, maybe twice a day right now."

"Sup bitches." Yami landed lightly on the deck beside us. Noelle was just behind him, using water magic to levitate the little sailboat onto the deck of the pirate ship. Charmy was with her, feeding her what looked like fried rice from a bowl.

"Captain!" Magna sounded relieved.

"Morgan." Noelle was looking up at the woman in the sky. "I've heard of her," she said, as she released her water spell and our little sailboat fell on its side with a loud thunk, Vanessa and Gordon tumbling out onto one of the sheep chefs. "One of the three Riderback Admirals."

"You have?" Mimosa looked doubtful as she hurried over to Asta, constructing some sort of bower of glowing pink flowers over him with her magic.

"You would too," huffed Noelle. "If you'd paid any attention whatsoever to our naval history tutor."

Mimosa shrugged, beatific. "He had good hair, but his voice was very boring."

Yuno frowned at Yami, though his counterspell didn't falter. "You knew about this," he said, quietly, though I could hear him perfectly over the rain. "That's why you came."

"Huh?" Yami looked annoyed. "No. My plan was to do some fishing. Though this is fine too, I guess." He shrugged, squinting at the figure in the air.

Charmy passed a bowl of rice to each of us, and I ate as quickly as I could, feeling my expended mana refresh.

"Wind kid, Noelle, can you get the ship closer?" Yami asked, his expression pensive.

"I-I can try." Noelle looked strained. Yuno just nodded, bringing his arms above his head.

Sylph vanished from his shoulder, and a green glow engulfed him. I could sense it, indistinctly now that we stood at the brink of Morgan's spell, but he had taken the creature's power as his own, their two mana pools combined.

They moved the ship together, timbers creaking, and Morgan watched us with mild disinterest. As if we were bugs.

Yami leapt up the rigging, and Luck and Magna followed. Asta looked distressed as he watched from the bower. Mimosa crouched by his side, her grimoire glowing bright as she channelled mana into her healing spell. "Just focus on healing," she told Asta. "You should stay here too," said Mimosa, turning to me. "You're hurt."

I shook my head, my good hand on the rigging. My other arm was bleeding where I had caught the electrified chain, but it was still usable. "I've had worse."

Luck and Magna were already charging up some kind of combination attack, a vortex of fire and lightning.

Yuno was folding the wind around him like paper, layer on knife-thin layer, and sent it forward, its razor thin edges slicing a path through the rain at incredible speed.

"Dark magic, dimension slash!" roared Yami, swinging his sword. I watched as the space around his blade split, the rift heading for Morgan, who watched it with disinterested eyes.

"Really, now?" The iron crowned woman didn't even bother dodging, and raised her hand as if requesting a bill at a restaurant. "You think that petty magic has any chance against me? Wheel magic," she intoned. "Reversal of fortune!"

Something in the space around us shifted, the water beneath us churning as if something huge moved there, and I had a sinking feeling in my stomach as I watched it. The vortex of fire and lightning, the scything wind, and the rift in space that Yami had made were headed for us instead.

"Well," Yami narrowed his eyes at his own impending attack. "Shit."

I was suddenly aware of Vanessa's cat, hackles raised, on the deck below the mast. It looked worse for wear, bedraggled by the rain, and it gave a loud yowl. The spacial rift that had been heading straight for us hit the air above us instead, the fire and lightning exploding harmlessly in the ocean below us instead.

Yami laughed. "Good job Vanessa!" he called, and I felt a twinge in my gut.

"Tch." Morgan's face fell abruptly. "I suppose you're not entirely ineffectual."

The cat vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and I blinked, wondering if I had imagined it, but was quickly distracted by Yuno's falling body, hit full force by the attack he had unleashed. I was the nearest, and scrambled to catch him, stabbing my spear through his fluttering hood as I hung from the rigging.

"Yuno!" Asta yelled, forcing his way out of the bower. Charmy wasn't far behind him. The ship lurched, its sails no longer supported by Yuno's wind magic, and I willed my spear into a hook before my hold on the dangling wind mage slipped, getting a more secure hold on his body as I lowered him to the deck. The two of them caught him, Charmy's face as black as thunder.

"Meal saving prince," she said, pushing a lock of Yuno's hair from his face. "I will avenge you."

Charmy stood, suddenly taller, leaving Yuno's body in Asta's arms, and walked to the edge of the deck.

Yami looked down on her from his perch on the lift of the mast, expression approving. "You're finally getting serious, huh. Took you long enough."

Charmy ignored him, her eyes fixed on Morgan's floating form.

"My apologies." Morgan raised one hand. "It appears you still don't realise how outmatched you are. Wheel magic, Taranis strike." An eight spoked wheel of light appeared in front of her, spinning as it careened towards us.

Gordon went down first, before he could even cast, and my heart caught in my throat as I watched him fall, hat knocked askew.

Luck tried to dodge, but the wheel was in front of him whichever way he turned. Magna yelled for him as he was blasted back.

I raised my shield arm, but the attack went for others first, first Noelle, who was focused on her water magic, then Mimosa. I was rushing to Noelle's side when it hit me in the back, my armour cracking as it forced me to my knees.

Yami summoned his _black hole_ with a quick incantation, engulfing the attack before him. "That just means we've gotta go all out," he said, the gleam in his eyes taking on a manic aspect, his katana streaming blackness. The ship lurched further down into the whirlpool, Noelle's water magic no longer keeping us abreast of it.

I looked up, and all I could see was white. I squinted- cotton? Charmy was dwarfed by the creature that stood behind her, a sheep that was easily as tall as the foremast, her grimoire glowing white before her.

"This is for meal saving prince!" she shouted, as the sheep loomed larger and larger, its ram horns skimming the thunderclouds. "Cotton magic, retributive justice sheep strike!"

I watched in awe as the sheep drew back its massive cloven hoof for an attack.

Morgan turned her head towards it. "Wheel magic, reversal of fortune."

The boat was blasted backwards by the force of the shockwave that resulted, and I slid over the deck, catching myself on the rails. Charmy was engulfed in cotton somehow, only the top of her head visible.

"Dammit." Yami's jaw clenched. "If no-one's got any better ideas I'm gonna start attacking her again. _Reversal of fortune_ is bullshit, but there's got to be a limit to it. Kost?"

I rushed an incantation as I clung to the rigging. _Throw the bones_. My heart sank as I saw the runes for down, water, and death. The bottom of the ocean. I schooled my expression, glad for my concealing helm. Were we about to lose? The ship lurched again, and I scooped up my runestones. I took a guess instead. "It's the crown. It's got to be some kind of magic item."

"Sounds plausible. Let's destroy it and see." Yami looked over at Asta, who hunched protectively over Yuno's unconscious body, his side bloody. "Kid! With me!"

Asta looked up, a strange sort of light in his eyes, and his voice was rough. "I can't use the form again yet."

"Alright." Yami's face was a fixed grin, and he tore a section of wood from the handrail, and tossed it to me. "Kost, get Asta to the enemy. I'll keep her busy."

I looked down the piece of wood in my hands. It was long enough to be a decent spear, maybe. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Fly it." Yami silenced my objections with a look. "Your mana control is decent. It should be instinctive."

"What if I can't?"

Yami shrugged, tearing off another piece of wood for himself. "We'll probably all die."

I shivered, remembering what my runes had said. Asta gave me a quiet nod, and I clasped the stick in both hands as he got behind me, hands on my shoulders.

Yami was already running up the foremast, the list of the ship tilting it towards the watching wheel mage. He hopped onto his makeshift broom at the last moment, dropping into a crouch as it took flight.

I didn't have the same physical strength as Yami, not even near. But I had been using reinforcement magic day in, day out, for years. I didn't trust myself to fly the random piece of wood Yami had given me, but at very least I could jump most of the way. I channelled mana to my legs, my grip on the broom like iron as I launched myself into the air above the whirlpool, shooting forward into the thunder and the sheeting rain.

We started to fall, and Asta's grip tightened on my shoulder. I could feel it even through my armour, though I couldn't see his face. I felt for my mana, felt for the piece of the wood, trying to connect the two in my mind, but we kept losing altitude. I could fire spikes to change my trajectory, but I had Asta's weight to carry on top of my own, so fighting gravity would be a losing battle. I needed the broom to work for me, but it was just a stupid, inert piece of-

"Kost!" Asta yelled in my ear. "Isn't wood just bones for trees?"

"That's the fucking stupidest-" I started, and stopped, as I sensed the stick begin to defy gravity, in tune with my mana. "-thing I ever heard." I angled the end of the broom upwards, trying not to question its workings. We ascended, up into the still space where Morgan's mana was strongest.

Yami reached Morgan a moment before us, and unleashed a _dark cloaked slash_. He took advantage of the dark magic's slow speed to avoid the attack on the return. Asta stood up on the broom behind me, one hand on my shoulder as he drew his sword from his grimoire.

"Here!" he yelled, and I stopped short as Asta threw himself from my broom and down into the fight.

I felt useless. Worse than useless, watching Asta and Yami risk their lives as they shot towards the faintly amused Riderback Admiral.

Morgan didn't even bother to look at our captain, just turned to face Asta as she cast another _reversal of fortune_ on Yami's attack. She cast a second on Asta, targeting his sword, but it didn't seem to stick, the mana flowing into the sword and simply ceasing to be, as if the sword had drunk it.

Asta landed his hit, and I felt the mana split the air as the crown broke, reverting to the wilderness.

Her face twisted in shock, then hatred as she realised what Asta had done, and with Yami's katana at her back, she raised her hand for one final attack. Not at Yami, or at Asta. She pivoted, her palm pointing down.

The bolt of energy from Morgan's hand sped towards the ship.

There was no-one conscious on deck. Noelle was down, Mimosa crouched at her side. Vanessa was still unconscious, her mana exhausted. If the attack hit, I was fairly sure it would shatter the ship apart, and everyone would be in the whirlpool, sucked down to the bottom of the ocean as my runes had predicted.

What good was I, after all, if I wasn't protecting anyone?

I fed mana into my armour, channelled it into the shield I'd made from my _bone shell_ , making it wider than my body, and chased the beam. The rain was in my eyes, nearly blinding me as I closed on it, and it seemed for a second that it would beat me to the ship, but I hit it at a glancing angle, and it struck the face of my shield, my condensed mana directing it upwards into the whirling thunderclouds.

I could taste the mana in the air around me, more than I had ever used.

My broom shattered under me.

I dropped into the sea.

* * *

The black. I was alone in the black. It pressed around me, filling my ears with a low, dull roar, a hundred times worse than the inside of the wurm had been. The wild mana was a riptide, pulling me down, and this time the only bones I could sense were mine. I opened my eyes to the blackness, unable to see up or down.

There was no bottom. I wasn't walking out of this one. Panic edged in on me, my chest burning as the air in my lungs ran low. I knew how to swim, in theory- make blades from the hands and kick the feet to move through the water, but it seemed futile in the face of the strength of the current, the weight of the sea around me. My arm hurt. My back hurt. I struggled anyway.

I was in Barrow again, whether I wanted it or not. I was running through the streets, my limbs moving of their own accord. I was slipping in the slick black mud, being dragged to the square.

I was looking away from my father's face as bloody tears streamed down it, flames licking at flesh which bubbled as it regenerated. I was surrounded, and I was alone.

The bandit leader's face was cruel, his white hair swept back by the heat and his green eyes narrow. His brow wrinkled when he saw me look aside, and his vivid red grimoire flipped open.

"Watch," he growled. "See how your coward of a father dies."

His magic was fire in the shape of a big cat's paw, holding my head up. He was too strong. I clawed at his grip with my hands, all of my body, all of my strength, screwing my eyes shut. I struggled anyway.

I didn't even know which way was up anymore, but I kept my limbs moving, thrashing violent in the water. They were heavy now, as if they had weights strapped to them. Twenty kilos, a hundred kilos. It didn't matter, my body was weak. I was weak.

Why struggle? Why bother? I felt the rage ebb in my chest, and its absence left me empty. Blackness crept into the edges of my vision as I hung there, limp. I was going to die. Everything had been for nothing. At least my father had died with his ideals intact. I had used my power for violence over and over, and for what? I hadn't achieved anything more than he had. Soon, we would both be dead.

I didn't see it at first, it moved so fast. The wild mana ripped past me in a scintillating current, but he was black-on-black, the zone around him bent to his will. His eyes were lights, two angry stars as he shot towards me, faster than the riptide. _Yami_.

He shot towards me, but I could see that he wasn't going to make it. He was fast, but I was being swept away by the current. When he'd found me, I'd been prepared to die. I'd had nothing- no family, and no home. But now-

I stared at Yami. Fuck this. Fuck this situation, fuck my weak body. Fuck fate. Fuck _death_.

I let my mana flare, what little I had left, and shot bone spikes behind me, pushing me against the current. Inch by fucking inch, until it felt like I had nothing left. My muscles exhausted, I moved my own body like a marionette, puppeteering my own bones with my magic to just fight a little more. I breathed in water, choking as it burned my throat.

I thrust my arm out, clutching for his hand. I wanted to live. More than anything, I wanted to live.

Yami grabbed my hand in his, pulling me to him.

Air had never tasted sweeter than when we broke the surface. We emerged into a cave, Yami's grimoire shedding the only light as he pulled us up onto a ledge, my arms around his neck. We sat, breathing hard, and I coughed up a little seawater before leaning forward onto him, my forehead against his bare chest. I could feel his pulse as our breathing slowed, quicker than I expected. Surely his heart rate should be dropping by now- he was in better shape than I was.

I tilted my head upwards, looking into his eyes. His face was cast in shadow by the purple light of his grimoire, but he was staring down at me, his brown eyes wide, inches from mine.

I kissed him. Not a lunge, exactly, but a lean forward, my lips brushing his. For an aching second, it felt as if he would push me away, but his lips softened against mine, and he slipped an arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him. We were both soaked through with seawater, but even so Yami radiated a warmth from his body, his waist between my thighs. His hands travelled down my back to cradle my ass, holding me against him.

I'd never kissed anyone before. Was this how it was meant to feel? My heart hammered in my chest, and I could feel my pulse through my body as Yami teased my lips apart with his and deepened the kiss. His mouth tasted like the sea, and his stubble prickled hot against my chin. I whimpered into his mouth as he squeezed my ass, moving my hips against him. I wanted this, whatever this was. I wanted him.

He broke the kiss, his hands still on my ass, and looked at me, our faces level, half a smirk on his lips. I wanted to say something, but I was breathless, helpless in the wake of the kiss, my body still against his, my heartbeat still seeming to resound between my legs.

"Mm." Yami smiled, eyes half lidded. "Who are you again?"

My jaw dropped. "Screw you-" I started, before realising Yami was laughing at me.

He kissed me, more tenderly this time, one hand at the back of my head, fingers lacing through my hair, and rested his forehead against mine afterwards. "I know who you are, knucklehead," he said, kissing my nose.


End file.
